


do you think I'm spooky?

by hellsteeth



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Car Sex, F/M, Fictober 2020, Fluff, Hate Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Masturbation, Menstruation, Sickfic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:01:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 30,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsteeth/pseuds/hellsteeth
Summary: A collection of ficlets for Fictober 2020tumblr: midwest-cryptid
Relationships: Diana Fowley/Alex Krycek, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 77
Kudos: 256





	1. "will you look at this?"

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober Day 1: Prompt # 9 “will you look at this?”
> 
> TW: injury

In a strange way, Scully is reminded of their first case tonight. However, the roles are reversed. Mulder stands in the doorway that adjoins their motel rooms, holding his right side tightly and grimacing.

She is frozen in place, taking in his stiff form and careful breaths. He’s still wearing his slacks from earlier in the day, but his button-down shirt and tie have been discarded, leaving only his white undershirt covering his top half.

“Is everything alright, Mulder?” she asks, eyes traveling down to where his hand grasps at his torso.

He frowns. “Will you look at this?”

She nods, stepping out of the way so he can enter her room. Scully guides him to the foot of her bed with a gentle hand on his left shoulder and he sits.

“Let me see,” she says softly. Mulder complies, lifting the side of his shirt slowly and revealing an angry red gash on his right side, just under his ribs. The injury is approximately five inches from top to bottom and the skin around it is puffy. Scully’s clinical eye detects the infection immediately and she hums in sympathy.

The cut extends farther up than Mulder can lift his shirt, so she steps closer to him. “Here, you need to take your shirt off.” She takes the other side of his shirt in her hand and together, they gingerly work it off of him. With the entire injury exposed, Scully can see that it is long, but not deep. Luckily, he won’t need stitches, but the cut will need to be cleaned and dressed.

“Well, doc, do you think I’ll make it?” he asks, feigning a sense of humor. She smiles wryly, but it’s clear that he’s in pain, sweat glistening on his forehead. She runs her fingers through the hair on the top of his head, trying to comfort him.

“I think you should pull through as long as you do everything I say,” she says lightly and feels his forehead with the back of her hand. No fever, luckily. “How did this happen, Mulder?”

“The suspect I was tailing yesterday stuck me when I cornered him,” he explains. “I thought it would heal on its own, but I must not have cleaned it well enough last night,”

Scully crosses the room, rooting through her carry-on until she finds her organized stash of medical supplies. It’s in a case that’s a bit bigger and much more detailed than the average first aid kit, compiled over the years as she’d learned how often either, or both, of them get injured during cases.

She walks into the bathroom, calling over her shoulder, “Come with me, I need to wash the cut out before I can dress it,” As she’s washing her hands with expert efficiency, counting to 20 in her head, Mulder follows her in and sits on the edge of the bathtub.

If not for the cut that’s oozing on his side, Mulder looks like he could be preparing to take a bath. As a fan of baths herself, Scully’s thoughts drift momentarily to the idea of her body fitting against his in a tub. She leans around him to turn on the tap, forcing her thoughts to remain clinical and professional.

“You’re lucky that they didn’t go deeper with whatever they used to hurt you,” she murmurs, wetting a washcloth under the warm water. She begins dabbing at the cut and Mulder hisses in pain, eyes squinting shut on reflex. “Sorry, sorry,” she apologizes, trying to make her movements more gentle. She offers her free hand to Mulder and he takes it, squeezing it tightly as she cleans out the rest of the infection.

“Son of a bitch…” he mutters, letting go of her hand and shaking his head. “Touching it now hurts more than when it actually happened.”

She nods, pulling gauze pads and antibiotic cream out of her medical bag. “I’m not surprised, it’s pretty infected. You’re lucky it’s not worse.” She applies a bit of the cream to the gauze. “I’m just going to clean it a bit more, and then I’ll dress it.” He nods, taking her hand again.

Scully dabs at the wound as carefully as she can, spreading the cream on it. Mulder sighs in relief when she is done, and is silent as she expertly dresses the cut in a bandage.

“I’ll take a look at it in the morning and clean it again. Hopefully, you’ll be feeling better tomorrow,” She informs him.

Mulder stands slowly, prodding the area around the bandage experimentally. “Thanks, Scully. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he smiles at her and she returns the look, washing her hands again and drying them.

“Well, despite my best efforts, you still manage to get scraped up every time we leave DC,” she admonishes lightly. They walk over to the adjoining door and Mulder contorts his body to look down at the bandaged wound.

“Hey, do you think this’ll scar? Some women think scars are sexy,” he winks at her.

“Hm,” Scully hums in response but neither confirms nor denies her own opinion. “I guess we’ll have to find out,” She stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Goodnight, Mulder,”

“Goodnight, Scully.”


	2. how about you trust me for once?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 2: Prompt #26: “how about you trust me for once?”

For the tenth time today, Scully is absolutely certain that she’s reached the limit of her patience. 

Her new partner has been breathing down her neck more than usual during this case. He sticks his nose into all of her autopsies, never giving her a moment of peace. Her every movement is observed with a critical eye; and it’s ironic that she is being so closely monitored by the man whose current theory is that aliens showed up and abducted the family they’re investigating.

Scully knows exactly why Mulder is acting like this.

 _I was under the impression that you were sent to_ spy _on me._

He’d said it during their first meeting, setting the tone for future investigations. She’d thought that she’d gained his trust in Oregon, but apparently not. One shared laughing fit in the rain had not undone the protectiveness he still has over his precious x-files. Today, Mulder has been acting like turning his back on her for a single moment would result in her whisking away all of the evidence and running directly to Blevins to discredit him.

They’re supposed to be partners, for god’s sake, not adversaries. She’s had enough.

As Mulder paces back and forth around her cramped motel room, he questions her incessantly about the precision of her autopsy methods. Had she looked closely enough for damage to the internal organs? What about trace evidence of electric shock? Mulder is grilling her harder than she grills her students at Quantico, which is certainly saying something.

“You read my file before we even met,” she says icily, ignoring his most recent question. “You know I teach-or at least taught- this stuff at the academy every single day. There’s no need to be so paranoid.”

“There’s every need to be paranoid,” he seethes, turning on his heel sharply in his frenetic routine. “You don’t know what you’re looking for, Scully. And even if you did see something relevant to this case, you’d just ignore it.” He murmurs something else to only himself, but Scully hears it. “That’s what _they_ want you to do,”

“Dammit, Mulder,” She snaps at him. “How about you trust me for once?”

He stops pacing and looks at her, arms crossed defensively over his chest.

She takes out her notepad and throws it at him, hitting him squarely in the chest. The small book lands lamely at his feet and he picks it up, looking from it to her.

“You think I’m keeping tabs on you? Take a look. All you’re going to find is field notes from _our_ investigation.”

She storms out of her own room, already feeling around in her blazer pocket for her lighter. When they reconvene tomorrow, the smell of cigarette smoke will still linger in her hair. Mulder won’t realize why this fact makes him trust her even less until years later.


	3. "give me a minute or an hour"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 4: Prompt #17: “give me a minute or an hour”
> 
> (I'm counting Chapter 6 of Wide Awake in Washington for Fictober Day 3)

“Happy birthday, Mulder,” Scully says, letting herself into his apartment and smiling at him. He stands to greet her and presses a kiss to her lips.

“Are you my present?” he asks, taking in her low-cut top and short skirt. He licks his lips. “Because if so, you are simply too good to me.”

Scully rolls her eyes affectionately. “Not quite, but thank you.” From her purse, she produces a slim box, wrapped in gold paper. Scully hands it to Mulder and sits on the couch, kicking off her heels and tucking her feet up under her. “Open it, I want to see your reaction.”

Mulder weighs the gift in his hands as he sits next to her, trying to tell what’s inside without opening it, a game he’s played since he was a child. At Scully’s excited look, he sits and tears at the wrapping paper and unearths a slender glasses case. Mulder looks at her bemusedly.

“Look inside,” Scully urges him, watching his face with a small smile on her lips.

Mulder does as he is told and opens the case to find a pair of glasses with square frames and off-color lenses. They don’t look like sunglasses, but they don’t look quite like normal reading glasses, either. Despite the anticipation written across Scully’s features, Mulder frankly has no idea what she’s given him or how to act.

“Scully?” He asks hesitantly, picking up the glasses and looking at her. She nods and squeezes his knee.

“Put them on, you’ll understand once you do,”

Trusting her, and wondering what that could possibly mean, Mulder lifts the glasses up and positions them on his nose. He turns to look at Scully and-

And Scully.

Is it Scully?

It is. It’s definitely his Scully...just different. The whole room is different, new colors jumping out at him and shocking his optic nerve. There’s so much to take in, but he’s transfixed on her.

Mulder feels like he is looking at Scully for the first time. He’s frozen in place, in awe of the woman before him. At his silence, Scully bites her bottom lip (pink, luscious, new) in worry.

“They’re meant to correct red-green colorblindness. I heard about them from an old colleague and they offered to send me a pair of prototype lenses. Are they working?”

Mulder nods slowly. “I think so,”

Scully grins. “What do you think? What’s it like?”

Mulder blinks a few times, still processing the signals being sent to his brain from all around him. He should look around, take in the world with a new set of colors, maybe contemplate the beauty of the tropical fish in his aquarium. Still, despite his knowledge that there are paintings and movies and meadows full of flowers he could be marveling at right now, his gaze stays fixed on Scully.

Mulder doesn’t quite have the words to describe what he’s seeing. Scully’s hair is _vibrant_ , awakening the cones in his eyes from a long slumber. The locks that curl a little around her face and stop a few inches under her chin are no longer the brownish-yellow that Mulder has become accustomed to over the years. He still thinks that the dirty blonde color is beautiful on her, the way it catches the sunlight. More often than not, he finds himself stealing glances at the shine of her hair as they drive down empty country roads at dusk, when the sun hits it just right. The term _golden hour_ was named after Scully’s hair, he’d decided.

Still, no matter how much he loves the way _he_ sees her hair every day, seeing it the way the rest of the world does makes his heart clench and shocks him into silence.

Instead of responding to her question verbally, Mulder reaches out with one hand, fingers splayed. He places his hand at the crown of her hand and slowly threads his fingers through her hair. He smiles as the brightness of her hair parts around his fingers, surprised that it feels the same as it always feels. Mulder thinks hair that looks like Scully’s should burn him, leave a mark on his flesh.

“Wow,” he murmurs, playing with her hair with one hand and picking up one of her hands to press gentle kisses along her knuckles.

“Mulder,” she says, sounding amused and a little embarrassed under the intensity of his stare. And _oh_ , the contrast of the pink blush on her porcelain cheeks combined with her hair and lips is almost too much. She looks undeniably warm, comforting and striking at once. “We’re going to miss our dinner reservation,”

He shakes his head, committed to taking in every inch of her through his new eyes. He’s well aware that there is more of Scully to see than just her hair (lovely as it may be), and he’s nothing if not thorough.

“Give me a minute,” He whispers. “Or an hour.”


	4. "no, come back!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 5: Prompt #1: “no, come back!”
> 
> Monday AU - Scully gets shot instead of Mulder

She’s small, too small in his arms. Mulder wants to pick her up off the cold marble floor and hug her body to his, but he knows that would make the situation even worse.

Scully’s breathing sounds labored, but he can tell it’s becoming weaker with every passing moment. He presses his hands harder against the bullet wound on her bare chest, having ripped her shirt open as soon as he could make his way over to her. Between pulling her limp, nude form out of an alien pod in Antarctica and clutching at her chest to decrease her blood loss, the only times he’s seen her shirtless is when she’s near death. When they make it out on the other side of this, he’s going to develop a complex.

Scully coughs wetly and flecks of crimson splash across her lips and cheeks, the only real color there. She coughs again and more blood gathers at the corner of her mouth, running down her cheek in a slow streak and disappearing into her hair, creating a sticky mess.

Mulder’s thoughts are rapid and panicked. He can’t remember if there’s something else he should be doing, something that could buy her more time. Scully would know what to do, if their positions were reversed. She’d probably be a hell of a lot more calm than he is right now, hands shaking and spreading hot blood across the top of her breast.

He can’t even focus on whatever is going on in the bank around him, not when she’s limp in his arms and her eyes stare up at the ceiling without really seeing anything. Scully’s heartbeat is weak, her breaths slowing and becoming more shallow.

“Come on, Scully,” He whispers, begging her. “Stay here with me. You’ve gotten through worse than this,”

The man who is responsible for her condition screams at Mulder, waving his gun around. Mulder ignores him, sweeping Scully’s hair away from her face and wiping blood off of her cheek and neck with his sleeve. “Come on, Scully, please,”

For a split second, it looks as if she might be listening. He sees a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. Then, another wet breath, a final slump of her chest, and nothing.

Silence. 

Silence in the bank, save for a few whimpers from other people, silence in Scully’s chest, her heart still. Blood rushes in Mulder’s ears as he stares down at her, looking into her still-open eyes for some sign of life that he knows he won’t find.

“No, come back!” He’s beside himself, blabbering complete nonsense between sobs. Scully does not respond, unable to dry his tears for the first time. No longer careful, Mulder hugs her small frame to him and sobs into her shoulder. Through a mix of their hair, he can see her murderer rip open his jacket, exposing the explosives held within.

Mulder clings to Scully and closes his eyes, feeling a calm acceptance wash over him as the man presses a red button.


	5. "that was impressive"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Mulder takes a leave of absence from work to go be a speaker at a psychology conference or something and is excited but sad because he'll miss Scully. Scully shows up unexpectedly to watch 
> 
> Fictober Day 6: Prompt #6: “that was impressive”

The only perk of being relegated to background checks and manure inspections, it seems, is the ability to take a few days off without the resulting anxiety of cryptids and conspiracies going unchecked (at least, no more anxiety than usual).

Mulder leaves at noon, planning on catching a train up to Connecticut later that day. He pats Scully on the shoulder as he leaves the bullpen and, though she is on the phone (probably making some poor applicant sweat over the time they smoked grass in high school), she gives him an excited thumbs up and mouths _good luck!_ as he passes by.

He feels slightly guilty, leaving her to do Kersh’s grunt work without even the comradery of mutual complaining. Still, she had been excited for him when he had received the invitation speak at the Northeast Regional Psychological Conference, and he really couldn’t turn down an opportunity to stay in a nice hotel, get a few free meals and talk about profiling for an hour or two. At least nobody would call him _Spooky_ at the conference. There, he was still regarded as the profiler that helped put Monty Props away in ‘88. Mulder no longer feels like that profiler after ten years, but he can slip back into the role for a day or so.

\--

The large auditorium is starting to fill up considerably. Mulder takes a sip of water and straightens his tie for the tenth time. He had appeared on a panel earlier, which had been easy on his nerves since he had been only one of many people speaking. Now, he is going to give a talk by himself and take questions from the audience. With luck, nobody will dredge up his previous speaking engagements throughout the years for the likes of MUFON and the Society for Psychical Research.

Mulder swallows, takes a deep breath, and clears his mind. What have all of his slideshows for Scully been over the years if not practice for this very moment?

For a split second, he thinks about how much he prefers debating Scully on the existence of psychic vampires in the basement to lecturing about criminal profiling to 200 people before stepping out onto the stage.

\--

Groups of academics and curious audience members converge on Mulder as he steps off the stage, hands still shaking slightly from the nerves and energy of speaking in front of so many people. His voice had caught in his throat only once at the very beginning of his lecture before he’d repressed his anxiety and continued smoothly. He now feels the post-presentation high that he became addicted to in college, the unwarranted and fleeting feeling of intellectual superiority. Although criminal profiling hasn’t been at the forefront of his responsibilities for quite a while, he hadn’t found it too difficult to talk about the subject as if it is something he still does everyday. In a way, that is true, but the audience doesn’t need to know that his profiling skills are used more on monsters than men these days.

As the crowd around him fails to dissipate over the next few minutes, Mulder begins to feel crowded. He shakes hand after hand, accepts a few business cards, politely pockets not one, but _two_ phone numbers passed to him from female audience members and starts to plan his escape back to his hotel room, where half a pizza and Skinemax are waiting for him.

Above the general noisy hum of conversations, a singular voice catches his attention.

“That was impressive,”

Mulder turns to his left and finds Scully standing before him, smiling widely. It’s not a smile he sees much around the Hoover Building, especially not these days, and it sends a thrill through him.

“Hey you,” he says, stepping closer to her. She engulfs him in a hug (as much as a person of her height can engulf a person of his height, that is) and he hugs her back tightly, delighted to see her.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. The strangers that were surrounding him start to file away as they realize that his attention is zeroed in on the red-headed stranger who elbowed her way through the crowd to reach him.

Scully shrugs. “I figured the nation could make it one day without me.”

“Here’s hoping,” Mulder beams at Scully, unable to contain his surprise and glee at her presence. “I can’t believe you came all the way here.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to miss a talk from the _famous_ Fox Mulder.” she teases. “Besides, it’s nice to see you do something you actually enjoy. I think working in the bullpen is going to kill us both from the boredom alone,”

Mulder groans at the reminder of all the paperwork waiting for him in DC. “Alright, what happens in Washington _stays_ in Washington,” he declares as he rests a hand on Scully’s lower back and begins guiding her out of the now-empty auditorium. “Besides, I can think of better things to do right now than talk about Kersh and his busy work,”

“Such as?” she matches his pace, short legs working overtime to keep up with him.

“I heard there’s going to be a little gathering in the hotel bar later, complimentary booze. How about we grab some dinner and hit the party there after?”

Scully grins and hails a cab as they step outside. “It’s a date,”


	6. "are you kidding me?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 7: Prompt #24: “are you kidding me?”
> 
> TW: PTSD
> 
> (early season 3)

The door slams shut between Mulder and Scully, three inches of steel separating them. He tugs at the handle, bracing one of his legs against the door and throwing all of his body weight into it. No luck. Figures, the electricity is this building is shot _except_ for the mechanized locks on the doors. Mulder groans in frustration and paces in a small, agitated circle.

“Are you kidding me?” he mutters to himself before approaching the door again and knocking lightly. “Are you alright in there, Scully?” He’s not even sure if she can hear him through the door.

To his relief, Scully’s voice responds faintly through the crack between the door and the floor. “I’m okay. This is just some kind of storage closet, I think. It’s pitch black in here so it’s hard to really tell. But I’m alone, at least.” She sounds annoyed, but unharmed.

Mulder nods to himself, satisfied that his partner is safe. He’s not so sure about his own safety, since he is exposed and alone in a dark hallway. For all he knows, the security guards of the base they’ve broken into will run around the corner at any moment and shoot him on the spot.

“Frohike, any updates on getting the electricity up and running again? And could you open the door to the storage closet in corridor C?” he says impatiently into his walkie-talkie, glancing down the corridor in both directions carefully.

“Sorry, Mulder. We’re gonna need a few more minutes.” Frohike’s static-laden voice replies. Mulder sighs. 

“Did you catch that, Scully?”

When silence is the only response, Mulder knocks again. “Scully?”

“...yeah. Got it.” Her tone is clipped. He can hear one of her shoes tapping out a staccato rhythm on the concrete floor.

Mulder feels a wave of anxiety roil through his body at the edge of trouble in her voice. Scully’s silence marks her as the canary in the coal mine. Something is wrong, but he doesn’t know what.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mulder asks again, desperate for an _I’m fine_ as long as it's the truth. He wants to be reprimanded by her for being overprotective and paranoid, wants to be told off for worrying too much and reminded that she can take care of herself. He knows all of these things already, but being lectured usually means that Scully isn’t in mortal peril, a guarantee he would appreciate right now.

“I-” Scully stops speaking as suddenly as she starts, sucking in a breath. Mulder can hear the fabric of her blazer drag against the metal of the door as she slides to the floor on the other side. He mirrors her movements, although he cannot see her, and sits down next to the door. Mulder gets on his hands and knees and peers under the crack, hoping to see her, but there is only infinite, dimensionless blackness on the other side. At least he has the faint glow of emergency exit signs out in the hallway to keep him company. Scully is completely immersed in darkness.

“Scully?” He asks uselessly. She doesn't reply. Now that they’re both sitting on the floor, he can hear the faint sound of her breathing under the door. It’s quick, panicked. The pace increases until she’s almost wheezing. If she keeps it up, she’s going to hyperventilate herself into unconsciousness. That would be a first.

He thinks back to Duane Barry, who kept her bound and gagged in a dark trunk for hours. And, with a grimace, he thinks of Donnie Pfaster, who’d tied her up and locked her in a closet. After the Pfaster case, she hadn’t slept at all until the flight back to Washington, but the next time they traveled for a case, she’d kept the lights on in her room all night.

“Scully,” He says again, but gently. He can hear her quick intake of breath, a frightened gasp at his voice. He softens his tone even more, trying to keep the urgency out of it for her benefit. “It’s me, it’s Mulder. You know who I am. You know my voice.”

Between gasps, Scully forces out a single word.

“Mulder?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m right on the other side of the door,” He tries jamming his fingers underneath to prove it to her, but they don’t fit. Instead, he takes off his tie and slides one end of it to her. “See? That’s my tie. You can grab onto it so you know I’m here,”

He feels a tug on his tie and holds onto his end, giving a small tug in return.

“Mulder,” she says again, more certain. She’s still gasping for air, which worries him. Even worse, he hears a soft sob through the door that breaks his heart. All he can do is talk to her and listen to her whimper. It’s not enough.

“Hey, hey,” He says, swallowing down his own anguish at the sound of Scully in such a distressed state. “Take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, and then release it, okay? Nice and slow.” He tries to give her an example, but he highly doubts that Scully can hear the faint sound of his breathing. “In, hold, out, hold. Just try it, please,” He implores.

“Okay,” Scully says in the small voice. The hyperventilation and sobs subside, replaced by measured, shaky breaths and pauses.

“Good,” He encourages her gently. “That’s perfect, Scully.”

He’s not exactly sure what she could be seeing in there to make her so upset, but he has a pretty good idea. There’s no shortage of demons in Scully’s past that could be dredged up in the dark, especially these days.

“Come on Frohike, I really need this door open. Now,” He growls into his walkie-talkie. After a heavy dose of static and extended typing noises, Frohike tells him they’ve almost got the door open and the lights back on.

“Just a few more minutes, Scully, I promise,” He wishes he could promise her that her exit from that storage closet really will be the end of her suffering, but he knows that an easy recovery from the things she’s endured is one of the few true impossibilities in the universe. 

She’s pulling on his tie, clutching it as if it's his hand. He tugs on it again, a reminder that he is there with her, and she tugs back. He hears a few errant sniffles, a hiccup, but no more hyperventilating. That’s a good start.

“Got it!” Frohike exclaims as the lock on the door disengages. Mulder scrambles to his feet and opens the door slowly, careful not to startle Scully. When he sees her, she is already on her feet, wiping at her red-rimmed eyes hastily. She sidesteps him and emerges from her temporary prison shakily.

“Are you alright?” Mulder asks, feeling stupid for even posing the question. Scully dodges his attempt at a hug and starts walking down the corridor.

“Come on, let’s get what we came for and get out of here,”

She refuses to meet his eyes for the rest of the night.


	7. "did I ask?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 8: Prompt #20: “did I ask?”

When Dana Scully is fifteen, she stops getting taller. At her next doctor appointment, the pediatrician walks through the door and addresses this development (or lack thereof) immediately.

“Well, Dana,” He begins jovially. “Last year, you were five foot three. This year, you are five foot three. And next year, you will be…” He trails off expectantly.

“Five foot three.” Dana mutters, swinging her feet from her spot on the exam table. She resists the urge to roll her eyes. Maybe the doctor is wrong.

(The doctor, she’ll discover over the course of the next few years, is not wrong).

\--

By the time she starts university, Scully finds herself on the other side of puberty. Her body has changed from a braces-laden, freckled girl to a young woman in every way but one. Woe betide the college fling that pats her on the head or calls her short stature _cute_. She invents ghosting thirty years early when a blind date (courtesy of her roommate) throws around the word _petite_. The date had been designed to fail, anyways. A tall softball player and a tiny physics student were destined to be incompatible, she tells herself. What she refuses to admit, even within the confines of her own head, is that she hates the way people assume that the smallness of her size extends into other aspects of her life as well. Being underestimated makes her blood boil, but it fuels her. She’s propelled forward by many things-curiosity, the desire to make her parents proud, the need to distinguish herself-but spite is near the top of the list.

\--

Although she hadn’t intended to _teach_ pathology when she’d decided to get a medical degree, Scully finds herself enjoying the challenges and rewards of training younger doctors. Some of her favorite students update her on their careers once they are assigned and out in the field. She’s jealous, but she knows an opportunity will present itself sooner or later.

The only downside of teaching the more practical aspects of pathology (that is, cutting open bodies and pointing out what is inside) is that she’s often shorter than her students. It’s difficult for Scully to feel authoritative when some of her students are towering over her as they all peer into a body cavity or observe her use of a bone saw. Still, she _is_ the one with the bone saw, so she can’t really complain.

She is, however, irate when she needs to ask her students for help when she can’t reach medical instruments on high shelves.

\--

There’s not much of a point of wearing heels at Quantico, when she’s usually dressed in scrubs and practical shoes to keep her arches from aching. However, when she starts wearing suits regularly for her new, albeit strange, assignment, Scully comes to appreciate the slight addition in height that a pair of kitten heels give her.

Mulder, for all of his posturing and pouting over having a partner, doesn’t tease her for her height when she jogs to keep up with him or jumps to reach files on high shelves. It’s a decent trade-off. She avoids calling him _Spooky_ or _Fox_ and he keeps his mouth shut about the way she loses a few inches when she kicks off her shoes in her motel room at the end of a long day.

(Well, he _mostly_ keeps his mouth shut, anyways)

To Scully’s surprise, the height difference between herself and Mulder isn’t altogether unpleasant. At first, he looms over her, cagey and mistrusting. He stares down his nose at her and challenges her to run away from him and his crackpot theories about aliens and ghosts. When she juts her chin up at him in defiance and stays, his height takes on a protective nature. He shields her and wraps her in his shadow. More than once, he throws his entire body between her and danger. Their height difference, like everything else that makes them so distinct from one another, becomes familiar to her over the years.

\-- 

Now, in the cozy light of her kitchen, Scully stands on her tiptoes and stretches her spine, reaching for a favorite mug that has been placed just out of reach by her perennial (and considerably taller) houseguest. The coffee brewing on the counter is a powerful motivator, and just as she’s about to resort to hopping, she feels the warm body of said houseguest pressing against her back.

“Let me help you,” Mulder whispers, ducking down to press a kiss to her neck before grabbing the mug and setting it on the sink.

“Did I ask?” Scully says testily. Her movements betray her contentment, though. She grinds her ass against Mulder’s front slowly and he wraps his arms around her from behind, planting kisses in her hair. 

“You don’t have to ask,” He replies simply, dragging a hand down her chest and stomach until it rests at the waist of her silk pajama bottoms. “I like helping you, even if you don’t always need it.”

When she leans into his touch, Mulder scoops her up and deposits her on the kitchen counter so they are facing each other. As he resumes his exploration of her body, she finds that she doesn’t mind her height quite so much anymore.


	8. "you did this?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 9: prompt #3: “you did this?” (established relationship)
> 
> Prompt: Mulder making a slideshow for Sculls like he does, but this one is like... flirty?

Scully sips her coffee, inhaling the heavenly scent of it as if that will transform the bitterness on her tongue into something easier to swallow. No such luck. She stifles a yawn and watches from her chair as Mulder excitedly sets up his newest presentation, humming to himself despite the early hour and the little sleep they had both gotten last night (although she doesn’t regret foregoing sleep in favor of _other_ activities).

“Alright, Mulder, I’m game. What have you got for me this morning?” She asks, crossing her legs and sliding down into a more comfortable position. A famous Mulder Slideshow, combined with the eager gleam eyes, guarantees that at least the next hour and a half is spoken for.

“I think you’re really gonna like this one, Scully,” He winks at her as he switches off the overhead lights. The basement office is now only lit by the bright glow of the projector. The first slide is a partial map of the United States, zoomed in on the northeast coast.

“The lovely state of Maine,” Mulder says in his Presentation Voice, which he mainly uses on her alone. Still, Scully appreciates the craftsmanship he puts into the show. “Known for its lobster and beautiful parks.”

Scully nods. Her recent trip to the state in question is still at the forefront of her memory.

Mulder paces in a slow circle around her chair and sets a warm hand on her shoulder as he clicks on his remote and switches to the next slide. This one shows a large, beautiful building with a wraparound porch. It’s gorgeous, a pale yellow that stands out against the blue sky in the background and the green of the garden in front of it. This place is a definite change from their usual destinations of abandoned warehouses and quiet suburbs.

“Behold, Scully: the Carnation Bed and Breakfast. It’s right on the water, there are a few museums and a movie theater nearby, and I’ve been assured that the food at the restaurant is _to die for_ ,” He stretches out the phrase and grins. “Although not literally, hopefully.”

This all seems perfectly normal and quaint. In other words, it has no business appearing on the same screen as cattle mutilations and crop circles. Scully is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“So...what’s at the bed and breakfast, then?” She asks, anticipating Scooby Doo-esque ghouls, or maybe giant lobster-human hybrids that come out at low tide to terrorize guests.

Mulder rubs at the back of his neck and smiles shyly. “We are. Or well, we will be. If you want to go.”

The lack of anything supernatural or even x-files-adjacent thus far in the presentation finally sticks out to Scully and Mulder’s true intentions dawn on her. “This isn’t about an x-file, is it?”

He shakes his head and pulls two plane tickets out of his wallet, showing them to her. Two roundtrip tickets, departing next Monday and returning a week later. Scully stares at the tickets, and then at Mulder, and then at the tickets. She pauses this oscillation to take a sip of her coffee before she makes herself dizzy. 

As the lukewarm liquid is halfway down her throat, she makes the connection between the dates on the tickets and the reason for this trip. Next week marks six months from the night that they had stumbled into bed together, drunk only on the scent of each other and the delicious contact of their skin. One night had turned into two, which had escalated into messy confessions of love, whispered reverently in the middle of the night. The next few months had mellowed into dinners after work, hands mingling atop the table, and weekends spent at each other’s apartments. Scully hadn’t even realized they’d been together for so long. It feels like an eternity and only a second, just enough and never enough all in one.

“You did this?” She asks, smiling and looking up at Mulder. “For our-” Can she even call it an anniversary? The date obviously means something to him, but she doesn’t want to put words in his mouth.

Mulder nods serenely, pleased with the look on her face. “For our six-month anniversary.” He hesitates. “I hope that’s not too presumptuous?”

She shakes her head, standing and setting her coffee cup down so she can hug him. “It’s perfect,” She whispers into his shoulder. “Thank you, Mulder. I can’t wait to go.”

He smiles and hugs her back, kissing the top of her head. “You’re welcome, Scully.” They pull back from the hug but hold each other at arms length, both grinning. “And it’s a win-win scenario, really. A full week of relaxation, good food, _sleeping in_ ,” He winks at her and she raises an eyebrow. “And maybe I’ll get to see a haunted doll this time, too.”

She laughs. “I have a feeling this trip is going to blow my last trip to Maine out of the water,”


	9. "you better leave now"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 10, Prompt #14: “you better leave now” (NSFW)
> 
> (from scullyscatheter on twitter, “the [Gilmore Girls] scene where lorelai goes over to max’s after months and they can’t separate themselves from each other and max throws the table aside to get to her bc they just can’t stop,,but with mulder and scully”)

Scully’s knuckles sting slightly as she raps on Mulder’s door with more force than necessary. Anxiety is a vice around her throat and she shifts her weight back and forth between her feet, trying to gain control of her emotions. This is the worst possible moment to question why she had thrown on a pair of joggers and a cardigan and driven across town to Hegal Place at 11 pm.

Before she can dive too deeply into her motivations, the door swings open and she sees Mulder, blinking at her in surprise. Like her, he’s dressed down in flannel pajama pants and a grey t-shirt.

“Is everything okay?” He asks, worry creasing across his forehead as his eyebrows draw together.

Scully nods and swallows nervously. “I uh, I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t been able to sleep lately, actually.” She’s stiff and awkward, unsure of exactly what to say. She hadn’t planned this out very much on the way.

“Oh...I’m sorry,” At least it seems like Mulder is also at a loss for words. It’s a small mercy.

She nods and forces herself to continue speaking, knowing that she should gather momentum now before she loses her nerve. “I haven’t been sleeping well since last month. And at first I tried to ignore it, and then when that didn’t work, I told myself that it was just due to stress from work, but,” She sighs and looks up at him. “I know that’s not true. And I know that the real reason is because I miss you.”

They’re both taken aback by this speech. Scully isn’t sure she’s ever spoken to Mulder about something personal for so long uninterrupted.

Mulder gives her a small, bemused smile. “Do you want to come in?”

“Yes, please.”

\--

Scully’s tongue swipes at the inside of Mulder’s mouth as they kiss passionately in his living room. She breathes the unmistakable scent of him in, finding that it’s exactly the same as it had been last month, during their first kiss. His long arms are already wrapped around her waist, but he pulls her closer, moaning into her mouth.

Last month, they had started kissing in much the same way that they had tonight. Impulsively, dramatically, two magnets finding each other thanks to an overpowering physical attraction. Still, last month they had broken the kiss to stare, horrified, at one another. They’d mutually vowed to sweep the night under the rug and carry on as if it had never happened. After years of repressing her attraction to Mulder, Scully had been confident in her ability to act normally around him. Unfortunately, she’d underestimated the effect that one bite of the forbidden fruit would have on her.

As his hands explore her back and comb through her hair, Scully pulls back momentarily. “I swear I did not come here just for this,” She says, telling the truth. She had intended to talk to him, to find out what he’s been thinking. But they had collided almost instantly, at the mercy of laws of attraction that are completely out of their control.

One of Mulder’s hands caresses her cheek while the other finds its way to the side of her ribs. His thumb brushes against her breast lightly.

“Okay, noted.” He whispers before kissing her again. She nips at his lower lip and he moans. However, the sound quickly turns into a frustrated grunt as he pulls away from her and throws his hands up.

“This is insane!” Mulder paces, wasting his kissing energy on the nervous action. Scully catches her breath and runs a hand through her hair to neaten it.

“It is. It really is,” She agrees woodenly. 

Mulder stops pacing when he reaches the opposite wall of the small room and crosses his arms. “For an entire month, nothing! No flirting, no innuendos, not even a high five. I’ve been afraid to even _look_ at you for too long. And now…” He trails off and gestures at the mussed state of them. Scully licks her lips, taking in the sight of him. She’s a rational woman with a good head on her shoulders, but the sight of Mulder’s pink, swollen bottom lip and the feeling of his growing erection pressing against her stomach while they’d kissed had outsourced her thinking to a body part that is _not_ her brain.

Mulder laughs incredulously and runs a hand through his hair, making it even messier. “Scully, this is crazy,”

“Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe it,” She says, stepping toward him. He meets her halfway, picking her up and kissing her enthusiastically. She’s sloppy, barely able to kiss him with any skill around the grin she’s wearing.

Mulder sets her back down and holds her at arm’s length, locking his elbows. “Okay, as much as I would like to continue, I really think we should talk about this,”

Scully nods reluctantly. “You’re right. We need to talk. That’s why I’m here,” She and Mulder both take a step back so they are no longer touching. She immediately misses the sensation of his warm hands on her, but she forces herself to step even farther back and take a few deep breaths.

“Here,” Mulder pulls one of his kitchen chairs into the living room and sets it at the coffee table, across from the couch. “You take the couch, and I’ll take the chair, and we can talk. From a distance.”

Scully obliges and plants herself on the couch, leaning forward slightly. Adrenaline still courses through her and she taps her foot on the floor to dispel some of her excess energy. Mulder sits across from her and looks down at the table, nudging it with his foot. It’s solid and sturdy, a dependable barrier that will force them to focus.

“How have you been?” He asks lightly. Scully snorts.

“You see me everyday, Mulder. I don’t think we need to waste our time with small talk,”

He raises an eyebrow. “Well, I was pretty surprised when you showed up here tonight. So clearly we need to get the basics out of the way before we move onto more advanced conversation topics,”

She rolls her eyes. “Alright, well if I’m being honest, lately I’ve been confused and angry at myself for what happened.” When he frowns, she clarifies, “I’m not upset that it happened, I’m upset about how it ended. I wish-” She stops herself and sighs. “I don’t know what I want,” She admits. Rather, she can’t easily admit to what she wants aloud. She wants _him_.

Mulder considers her words and nods slowly. “After last time...I honestly didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t tell if you were mad at me, but since we agreed to pretend like it never happened, I followed your lead. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to do it again,” He smiles sheepishly at her.

“But...there are still reasons why we shouldn’t be doing this,” She counters slowly, although she can’t think of any specific reason at the moment. Mentally, she is still wrapped around Mulder, tracing his lips with her hot tongue and scratching up his back. From the way his eyes drift from her lips to her chest occasionally, it’s clear that he is thinking similarly.

“There are so many reasons. We could lose our jobs. Or get reassigned.”

“Yeah,”

“So you better leave now,”

“I’d better,”

The apartment is silent as they stare at each for a moment. Scully makes no effort to leave.

“Screw this,” Mulder growls, pushing the coffee table out of the way and knocking it over. It hits the floor with a loud _crash_ and the magazines and mugs that had been sitting atop it clatter loudly to the floor. Scully barely hears the noise as she stands. Within an instant, she’s in Mulder’s arms again, standing on her tiptoes to meet his lips with her own. She sucks his luscious bottom lip into her mouth and runs her hands beneath his t-shirt, savoring the warmth and softness of his bare skin.

He reaches under her ass to support her weight as he turns and settles down onto the couch slowly. She straddles his lap, placing a leg on either side of him and grinding against the bulge in his thin pants. They gasp at the friction in unison and she grinds down on his hard length again, certain that he can feel how wet she is even through the fabric of their clothes. In her dazed rush to see him, she had neglected to put on underwear. It seems like he’s also wearing nothing under his pajama pants

After they lose the final layers of clothes that separate them, Scully kisses him soundly and sinks down onto him. _Screw the reasons_ , she thinks before losing herself in the ecstasy of their entwined bodies. 


	10. "I trust you"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 11, Prompt #31: “I trust you” (post-Orison)
> 
> TW: trauma, vomiting

She’s covered in a thin layer of grime. It’s sweat from the struggle with Pfaster and subsequent captivity and blood, some of which is hers and some of which is not. It’s caked into the creases of her fingers and the corners of her mouth. If she inhales through her nose, she can smell the metallic scent of it, nauseating and insistent in her lungs.

Scully is shrouded in the detritus of violence, and it weighs heavily on her skin like too-tight clothing.

Out of the corner of his eye, as he gathers clean clothes for her from his own dresser, Mulder can see Scully scratching at the bloodstains on her hands. She’s too rough with herself, and soon her fingers will be wet with her own fresh blood if she doesn’t stop.

Mulder sets down the t-shirt and sweatpants he’d chosen and approaches her, taking her hands gently in his and stopping her desperate ministrations. Scully starts at the intrusion and he pulls his hands back, cursing his own carelessness.

“I have some fresh clothes for you. Do you want to clean up first?” He doesn’t dare mention a shower. His small apartment isn’t even equipped with a bathtub, but she’s been reticent and hard to read since they left the precinct. Pushing her even an inch too far is not an option.

Scully nods and glances at his bathroom hesitantly. She’s aching to wash the events of the night from her body as much as she can, well aware that angry purple bruises will decorate her throat like a macabre watercolor painting for days. Still, the idea of stepping under a hot spray of water and washing her hair brings bile to her throat. She forces herself to swallow it down, the resulting burn bringing her back to the moment.

“Yes, but I’m exhausted. I don’t know if I have the energy for a shower right now,” It’s the truth, but not the whole truth. She doesn’t need to tell him directly for him to understand.

“Why don’t you meet me in the bedroom? I have an idea,” He says cryptically. Scully, wary but curious, agrees and walks into the bedroom, leaning against his bed. She contemplates her ruined nails, covered in crusty blood from when she had dug them into Pfaster’s eyes.

_Who does your nails, girly girl?_

She shudders and digs the nails into her palms, using the sting as a tether to the present to stop her thoughts from drifting. 

Mulder walks in a few minutes later, arms laden with towels. He unfolds a large, fluffy bath towel and sets it on the bed. After a shared look, Scully scoots onto it awkwardly, fighting the flimsy elasticity of the waterbed. She says nothing, unsure whether she even has any words left.

From his other hand, Mulder produces a small washcloth, wet with warm water from the tap.

“I was thinking you could use this to clean off the blood. It seems like your hair can wait so…” He holds the cloth out to her and she looks at it. Slowly, Scully reaches up to her lips, feeling the raw split there and the blood at the corners. She pulls her hand away as if burned and shakes her head. When she touches her own body, she feels Pfaster’s hands, shockingly soft considering the evil they’re responsible for. Touching her body is a reminder that it’s real, that she exists not only as a consciousness that can witness that universe but as a body that can be affected by it. She wants to alienate herself from her own skin, crawl out of it so she doesn’t have to wear the thing that Pfaster had touched and coveted and fantasized about while locked up.

“If you’re too...tired, I could do it. If you’re comfortable with that.” He watches her face carefully, unable to discern any real response from the expression there alone. Slowly, Scully nods and looks up at him, unbuttoning her pajamas.

“I trust you,”

She lays back on the towel and lets her shirt fall open, exposing her bare stomach and the valley between her breasts. Mulder exhales a cool stream of air from his mouth and rolls up one of her sleeves, gingerly pressing the damp cloth to Scully’s wrist. She gasps as the warmth meets the puffy red skin, irritated by the tight binds Pfaster had secured there as she’d struggled. Mulder mutters a sympathetic apology and cleans her left arm of blood. He does the same to her right arm and rises to rinse out the cloth.

While he’s away, Scully stares at the ceiling, feeling exposed. The water cools on her skin and she inhales, taking stock of the experience thus far. When Mulder cleans her, it feels careful and calculated. The way Donnie Pfaster touched her had been calculated as well, but only because he had seen her as parts to be cut into instead of as a person. If she focuses, she can almost feel the tug on her hair as he had run his disgusting fingers through it, assessing the softness and the bounce of it. She’ll have to throw out all of her candles, shampoo, and bath oil when she goes home.

Mulder returns and looks at her, searching her face for any sign of distress.

“Is this still okay?” He asks quietly.

“Yes, it’s helping,” Scully whispers back. 

Mulder resumes his reverent duties and she closes her eyes, focusing on the feeling of friction between the cloth and her skin. She feels a lone droplet of water slide down the slide of her ribs as he slowly swipes the cloth over her stomach and between her breasts. He sweeps up the trail of the drop with his finger before cleaning her sternum in light figure eights. The muscles in her arms and legs clench reflexively as the corner of the washcloth pokes one of Donnie Pfaster’s finger marks on her throat and Mulder withdraws the cloth entirely until her muscles relax.

He sweeps her hair out of her face quickly before tracing her lips and chin with the cloth, clearing them of blood and the taste of her attack. He’s gentle with her nose, which is still tender but no longer actively bleeding. Scully hasn’t looked at her own reflection, but she’s fairly confident that Pfaster hadn’t broken it.

Mulder crawls down the bed a little, settling at her ankles so he can clean out the scrapes from her binds, which still wrap around her like a phantom vice. The skin of her ankles still shows the indentations of tight knots, tight enough to bleed. Mulder resists the urge to press a kiss to the cuts there and sits up, settling back on his haunches.

“All clean,” He says. Scully opens her eyes in a daze, drawn out of the liminal space between consciousness and sleep. The last time she had crawled out of Pfaster’s clutches tooth and nail, back in 1994, she hadn’t slept well for weeks. Now, despite the lingering horror at both the events that had happened _to_ her and what she’d _done_ , Scully is shocked to find herself slipping into drowsiness as she tries to keep her eyes open.

She sits up slowly, blinking and yawning. Mulder hands her clean clothes, soft and rolled with care.

“I’ll be right back,” He says before gathering up the towels and leaving the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Scully changes quickly, swimming in Mulder’s t-shirt and sweatpants. The clothes are a comfort to her, sliding over her clean skin. She crawls under the covers of the bed and glances at the door, wondering if Mulder had decided to stay outside so she could sleep. A moment later, the door creaks open a sliver and Mulder pokes his head in.

“All settled in? I’ll just be out here if you need me. I think I’m gonna hit the hay, too,”

“Stay,” She says, the words leaving her lips of their own accord. Mulder freezes in surprise before nodding. 

“Yeah, okay,” He agrees, entering the room and shutting the door behind him. Scully watches as he pulls pajamas for himself out of his dresser and changes into them, not a shred of self-consciousness on him. He settles into bed next to her and turns to face her. 

“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?” He asks, worried.

She nods and burrows deeper into the blankets. “I think so. I might wake up, though,” She warns him.

Mulder scoots a little closer to her, squeezing her hand before releasing it. “I’ll be here if you do,”

True to his word, when she wakes up hours later, screaming and thrashing, he’s at her side instantly. In the darkness, she interprets his hands on her as another form of restraint, convinced she’s still locked in her own closet. Mulder follows her as she stumbles to his bathroom, he holds her short hair back as she empties the contents of her stomach into the toilet. She rinses her mouth out and lets him carry her back to bed, boneless, before succumbing to a dead sleep once again. In the morning, she barely remembers the nightmare incident save for an ache in her throat and stomach, but Mulder hugs her tight against him and she lets him, lulled by the feeling of his protective arms around her.


	11. "do we have to?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 12, Prompt #23: “do we have to?”
> 
> (prequel to Day 10 ("you better leave now"))

It’s unclear to both of them how the kiss begins. All they know for sure is that whenever one of them gets up during the movie to grab another beer or use the restroom, they return and sit slightly closer to their partner than before. Soon, their legs are touching, the shared surface area searing their skin even though Mulder’s apartment is a bit chilly.

The movie ends, credits flickering across the screen to the generic score. Mulder _should_ get up and take the tape out of the VCR, but he makes no move to do so. Scully _should_ glance at her watch and declare that it’s getting too late to stay, like she always does. Her watch stays in her lap as she and Mulder look at each other hesitantly. 

“What’d you think?” He asks, breaking the tense silence.

She shrugs. “It was alright?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Just _alright_ and you stayed awake for the whole thing?” It’s true that she has a bad habit of falling asleep before the end of awful movies. She’d left half a bowl of popcorn untouched a few weeks ago as she dozed through the back half of “Nothing But Trouble”.

Scully turns to face Mulder. They’re already so close that she can nearly feel his breath across her cheeks at he looks at her face. She catches his eyes dipping down to her lips for a nanosecond and licks them self-consciously.

“Maybe I didn’t stay awake for the movie,” She ventures. Her tone is light but careful, as if she’s afraid of scaring him off like a shy deer. It’s a safe statement, just neutral enough to give her some plausible deniability, but meaningful enough to get her point across as long as he is on the same wavelength as her.

Mulder’s hand reaches out to take hers from her lap. They share a brief smile before they kiss, sighing away the tension that had been building between them all evening. One of Mulder’s hands cups her cheek and he ghosts his thumb across her delicate cheekbone lightly as their tongues mingle. The kiss is slow and deep, but Scully’s hands are enthusiastic, finding his hair, his ribs, his lower back, his face. Her heart leaps at the taste of him, the softness of his lips on hers.

When they finally pull away from each other, the reality of the situation begins to dawn on them. It hits them differently. Mulder smiles sheepishly and laughs a little, running a nervous hand through his brown locks. He mutters _wow_ and smiles at her from under his lashes. 

Scully, on the other hand, is frozen, her mouth and her eyes in wide circles as her brain crunches the numbers. She’s the most prepared woman on earth, with a stack of binders to prove it, but she had never quite prepared herself for this inevitability. Preparing would lead to thinking about it, which would lead to longing for it. She’s not masochistic enough to voluntarily fantasize about something she can’t have when she already finds herself thinking about it involuntarily enough.

“Earth to Scully...” Mulder says, waving a hand in front of her face. He looks worried for a moment, but she snaps back to attention, taking a deep breath and bracing herself for the next words out of her mouth.

“This didn’t happen,”

“W-What?” He’s confused, the elation of the kiss giving way to concern.

She takes him by the shoulders and looks him in the eye meaningfully. “This didn’t happen, because if it _did_ happen, it would _continue_ to happen. And if _that_ were the case, then the people looking for any excuse to shut down the x-files and split us up would have the perfect reason. Wouldn’t they?”

He deflates entirely, realizing the painful truth of what she’s spelling out for him. Of course they can’t have this.

“You’re right,” He admits. “But where do we go from here? It already happened, we can’t just pretend that it didn’t.”

Scully raises an eyebrow. “Can’t we?” She hates that she has to be the strong one here, especially when every fiber of her being is screaming at her to stop talking and kiss Mulder again. She pushes through that urge, knowing that he’ll thank her much, much later.

Mulder looks down at his lap. “Do we have to?” He asks quietly, even though he already knows the answer.

Scully sighs and takes his hand, smiling sadly. “I think we do. But for what it’s worth, that was pretty unforgettable.”

He looks up at her, smiling a little. “Yeah?”

She smirks and nods. “But of course, that’s off the record,”

Scully gathers her things to leave and stretches. Mulder bids her goodnight with a stiff hand on her shoulder. When he’s alone once again, he flops down onto his couch and stares into space. In a roundabout way, they’d both just agreed that the continuation of the x-files is more important than whatever is clearly going on between them. He’s not entirely sure that he even believes that anymore.


	12. "give me that"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 13, Prompt #27: “give me that”

The metal of the rental car squeaks under Mulder’s weight as he bounces up and down on the hood, holding his phone to his ear. If he stands _just right_ , he can get a connection. The tow truck company on the other end speaks to him through muddled static. They may as well be communicating through smoke signals or prophetic dreams. He sighs in defeat and makes his way back to the ground, shivering against the cool October wind. The trees along the dark road sway and rustle, and it almost sounds like laughter at his expense.

“Any luck?” Scully asks him when he ducks back into the warmth of the car. Mulder instantly sheds his topcoat and rubs his hands together in front of the heating vent.

“I’d say we have about a fifty percent chance that they heard me well enough to come pick us up,”

“And the other fifty percent?”

“We pull a Donner Party?” He suggests darkly.

Scully rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ve seen your eating habits. I doubt there would be much point to cannibalizing you from a nutritional perspective.”

_That’s a fair point_ , Mulder thinks as he dives into the last of their snacks from the rest stop. He finds a half-eaten bag of sunflower seeds and grabs a few to munch on. “Either way, it looks like we’re gonna be stuck here for a while,”

“Well, as long as we’re technically still on a work trip, we’re getting paid, so we can’t complain too much.” She smiles wryly. “What should we do to pass the time?”

Mulder contemplates the tumultuous forest surrounding them. In the darkness, it feels like the walls of the trees are closing in on them. A strong wind drops a smattering of leaves on the windshield as thunder bellows above. A storm is on the way.

For lack of a better description, this night is very _spooky_. 

“Do you know any good ghost stories?” He asks, wiggling his eyebrows at her. Scully thinks for a moment, reaching back to Ahab’s stories about ghostly ships lost at sea, the sailors aboard them forever sailing toward an unreachable destination. As a child, she would pull her blanket up to her chin as her father recounted these tales to her and her siblings, waking in the middle of the night and inspecting the corners of her bedroom for spirits.

Even though she’s a grown woman with a healthy disbelief in the supernatural, the memory of those stories and the fear that followed still sends a shiver down her spine.

Scully grins. “I have a few good ones, as long as you’re not too chicken,”

Mulder laughs and settles down into his seat, ready to be entertained. “Easy, if I get scared, you’ll just have to hold my hand,”

“Deal,”

She holds out her hand for the flashlight he had used to inspect their flat tire. “Give me that,” He hands it to her and she flicks it on, holding it under her chin and illuminating the striking features of her face.

“It was a dark and stormy night out on the water…”


	13. "all I ever wanted"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 15, Prompt #10 “all I ever wanted”

Love is all about proving yourself.

Fox Mulder realizes this fact sometime between the ages of twelve and fifteen. He tries to be enough. He does the work of two children in his fruitless attempts to make the house feel full again. Still, there is a silence and a sadness that seeps into every corner and crevice of the building. It frosts the windows and dulls the noise, if there is any conversation to quiet at all.

His parents don’t speak to him much.

There are forces rivaling plate tectonics that drive his small household apart. Samantha’s disappearance had been the wedge that forced the cracks in his family into a chasm. Fox straddles the divide willingly, despite that fact that neither his mother nor his father are vying particularly hard for him. The resulting divorce is a quiet affair. It’s inevitability had occurred to Fox and Samantha years ago, and by the time it actually happens, he’s been expecting it for a while. A small part of him is grateful that Sam isn’t there to witness his parents fight over who has to shoulder custody of him.

He helps his mother pack up the moving truck wordlessly. After she’s gone, he sits on the porch of their house, now only home to two people, and wonders why he hadn’t tried harder to be enough for her.

\--

When Mulder arrives at Oxford, he is primed and ready to make himself worthy of love. Phoebe Greene is ready to make him work for it. His growing knowledge of psychology comes in handy as he assesses the type of man she wants him to be. He traces the outline of this idea and steps inside it, feeling too small. He strains his muscles and stretches, trying to fill out into her vision.

Mulder strips himself of his wet and muddy clothes when he arrives home from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s grave, warmed only by Phoebe’s glowing approval. He casts his eyes away from his reflection, lacking any recognition of the face in the mirror.

\--

Diana Fowley presents new twists and surprises at every turn in their relationship. She likes games, and Mulder is willing to play them in return for her affection. The rules change sometimes, but he’s a clever man, and it’s all worth it to feel like he’s earned his place with her.

Mulder learns the signs of her unhappiness, avoiding them like creaky floorboards. He bends this way and that way until an eventual breaking point is reached. Even he has his limits, and he can only do so much for her until he has exhausted himself. Mulder knows that he’s not the person Diana wants him to be, not at his core, and she will only ever be frustrated with him.

Mulder thinks that he’s glad to see her go when she leaves for Europe, but a nagging voice in the back of his head suggests that he could have been perfectly happy with her had he just compromised a bit more.

\--

Initially, being with Scully is like walking down one too many stairs on a staircase, foot slamming into the floor with unnecessary force thanks to the expectation of another step. Mulder is sure that he knows the formula for love by now, that he can plug numbers into his trusty equation and produce the feeling of being wanted. Of being _enough_. 

Scully surprises him and is surprised in return. 

As they lay in bed one night, bodies curled together and relaxed under blankets, Scully whispers _I love you_ into his shoulder and kisses a spot at the bottom of his neck gently. 

Like a lingering pain from a childhood injury, Mulder asks, _Why?_

The word leaves his lips at a volume just above a whisper, and Scully tilts her head up to look in his eyes. He wonders if this is it, if his neediness will be the thing to finally drive her away when everything else about him has failed to do so. However, Scully cups his cheek in one hand and kisses his lips softly before replying.

_You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Mulder._

He holds her tighter, unsure what to say. They both drift off easily. A lifelong weight is lifted from his shoulders as he realizes that he no longer needs to task himself with finding new ways to entice her to stay. The feeling of wanting and being wanted so effortlessly in return is new and intoxicating. It’s the fading of a familiar scar that he isn’t sorry to see gone.

With time, he grows used to this new kind of love. When she tells him she loves him, he doesn’t need to ask _why_.


	14. "I'm not doing that again"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 16, Prompt #8 “I’m not doing that again”
> 
> Prompt: Mulder and Scully actually going to a team building seminar

The coffee is terrible, the walls are drab, and the company is migraine-inducing. Some things truly never change, and these tell-tale signs of the annual FBI team building seminar are amongst them.

Mulder chews on the inside of his cheek and doodles flying saucers on his welcome packet as the agents in his “break out circle” go around and introduce themselves, sharing the nature of their jobs with the Bureau and one interesting personal fact apiece. He looks over his shoulder at a similar circle on the other side of the room, spotting the back of Scully’s head and her tense shoulders. Chances are that she’s just as miserable as him. At least if they hadn’t split partners up for the icebreaker they’d be able to share judgemental glances and commiserate, but no such luck.

When it’s his turn, he glances around the circle and into the faces of overzealous agents, on the edges of their seats as if he’s about to do a magic trick. Apparently it’s easier to get through the Academy than it used to be.

“My name is Fox Mulder, I work on the X-Files in DC, we investigate unexplained phenomena,” He says woodenly.

“And one interesting fact about you?” The group leader throws him an encouraging smile and he briefly wonders how he can get back at Skinner for making them attend this seminar. Maybe he’ll make his next report particularly long and pedantic.

Mulder puffs out a long, weary sigh. “Uh, my grandfather invented the microwave oven,” He lies in a deadpan. It’s the fourth false “fun fact” he’s come up with today, and so far nobody has called his bluff. Some of the other agents smile, impressed. If souls exist, Mulder’s withers a little bit.

When he and Scully reconvene, one glance at her expression tells him all he needs to know about her experience with the icebreakers.

“I’m not doing that again,” She whispers to him through gritted teeth as they take their seats for the next speaker. The itinerary lists the next speaker as a life coach versed in meditation and nebulous spirituality. He pats Scully’s shoulder, fearing for her clenched jaw and preparing for her inevitable rant in their hotel later.

As they are led through a meditation and told to _sense each other’s emotions through breathing_ , Mulder tries his best and can almost feel the crushing weight of Scully’s annoyance with the exercise. He refuses to give credit to the meditation, since she’s also cutting off the circulation to his hand with hers.

At least the Bureau is covering the room charges, because he has a feeling their minibars will be empty by the end of the night.


	15. "this, this makes it all worth it"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 17, Prompt #21 “this, this makes it all worth it” - AU in which Emily lives and is adopted by Scully
> 
> Prompt: muldy and sculls decorate scully's apartment for halloweeeennnn (basic i know but it has to be done)

“I still don’t understand why we need to have a movie on in the background while we decorate,” Scully mumbles as she and Mulder dig through their combined collection of Halloween movies. Emily presides over the search from the couch, looking down at the mountain of tapes curiously.

“It’s all about setting the mood, Scully! It’s about getting inspired,” Mulder grins. “How are we supposed to make your place look Halloween-y and creepy without the perfect soundtrack?”

Emily nods enthusiastically.

Mulder spreads his selections out across the carpet of the living room. “Alright, how about _Nightmare on Elm Street_?”

Scully’s eyes widen and she glances at her daughter, now five-years-old but still too young for such a film. “No way!”

“Alright, what about _Carrie_? That’s one of your favorites, isn’t it?”

Her cheeks flush at the fact that he had remembered such a trivial fact about her, but she resolutely shakes her head. “No, Mulder,”

“ _Silence of the Lambs_? Hey Scully, maybe you could go as Clarice Starling for Halloween!”

“Who’s Clarice Starling?” Emily asks, swinging her little legs off the couch and taking the tape out of Mulder’s hands to examine it. Her mouth silently sounds out the words on the box. Scully plucks the tape out of her hands and replaces it with _Hocus Pocus_.

“Here, I picked this up the other day and I think it’ll be appropriate for everyone,” She says sternly. Mulder rolls his eyes fondly and turns on the VCR.

“Aw, Mom,” Emily mumbles dejectedly. 

“Don’t worry, “ Scully reassures her daughter, scooping her up and sitting down on the couch while Mulder takes the tape and starts the movie. “When you’re older, I’ll show you all of my favorite scary movies,” This satisfies Emily for the time being and she turns her attention to the television.

To Scully’s horror, _Hocus Pocus_ isn’t as safe a bet as she had wagered. While she and Mulder unpack her many boxes of Halloween decorations, Emily asks her what a _virgin_ is. Mulder hides a laugh in the sleeve of his sweater and Scully distracts her with a freshly-unearthed scarecrow decoration for them to hang on their front door.

\--

Mulder stands on a kitchen chair, stringing up orange lights around the wall of Scully’s living room. From his position in the corner, he watches Scully and her mini-me tackle the rest of the apartment.

Sometimes, Emily really does look like a miniature version of her mother. It’s not just the blue eyes that can stare right into his soul or the fact that Maggie had given her granddaughter a golden cross necklace to match her daughter’s. These things only affect Emily’s appearance from the outside. After nearly two years of living with Scully, Emily is starting to pick up some of her mother’s _mannerisms_.

Mulder had first noticed this trend when he’d had dinner at Scully’s a few months ago. While he did the dishes, Scully had sat down with Emily at the kitchen table for a nightly reading lesson. The furrow in the young girl’s brow, as well as the frown on her face from concentrating, had been instantly recognizable to him. 

A few weeks later, he’d been telling the younger Scully a bedtime story about the half-man, half-frog that walked upright in Ohio when she’d put her hands on her hips and looked at him with a startlingly familiar expression of incredulity. Mulder doesn’t think he could love Emily any more than he already does, but his heart melts at the small reminders that she really is her mother’s daughter.

Both Scully’s are currently on the other side of the room, placing small autumnal tchotchkes on shelves and frosting every surface with a thin layer of fake cobwebs. Emily occasionally glances over her shoulder to check on the movie while Scully arranges things just right.

“How does this look?” Mulder asks them and motions to his handiwork. Emily gives him a big thumbs-up and Scully smiles.

“It looks great, Mulder, thanks,”

“Happy to be of service,” He jokingly salutes her and hops down off the chair before carrying it back into the kitchen. When he returns, Scully and Emily and appraising their own work around the room.

“I think you did a great job, too,” He says, sidling up to them and placing a quick kiss on Scully’s cheek while Emily is distracted. She turns to him and smiles before planting a kiss on his smiling mouth, lips warm and soft against his.

\--

Later, when the apartment has been thoroughly decked out in decorations in every room, the trio lounges on the couch and watches the end of _Hocus Pocus_. Emily’s head is in Scully’s lap as she wavers on the edge of sleep, and Scully is tucked into Mulder’s side. His arm rests comfortably on the back of her shoulders and he strokes at her upper arm with his thumb.

Emily drifts off five minutes before the end of the movie. They’ll have to tell her what happened in the morning. He holds Scully a little tighter and she rests her head on his shoulder, dangerously close to sleep. Within a minute, her breathing slows with the telltales signs of slumber. Juggling motherhood and work has been taking it out of her lately, even though she rarely mentions how tired she is, and he’s eager to help her in any way he can. Luckily, the new form their relationship has taken has made her more receptive to his help. They’ll have to explain it to Emily at some point, but he’s willing to wait as long as Scully needs.

Mulder takes in the sight of his girls, sleeping and content, and smiles to himself in the faint glow of the television and fairy lights.

_This_ , he thinks, _this makes it all worth it._


	16. "watch me"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 18, Prompt #12 “watch me”
> 
> as requested by @ariverofsongs on tumblr: “Mulder and Scully take a long walk on an empty east coast beach in late summer/ early autumn. Skinny-dipping ensues and.......well, they've got to warm up somehow ;)”

They’re both on edge and cross after their most recent case. When he reaches out to touch her shoulder, one of the only forms of comfort she’ll accept most days, she jumps and pulls away. He feels similarly vulnerable, like fresh skin growing over a nasty scrape. After days of pain and tension, of slammed doors and shouting matches, they could both use a respite. The anger of the past week is neither of their faults, really. It’s the nature of the job that drives them apart every now and then. Like rubber bands, they always snap back into place eventually.

This is how Mulder and Scully find themselves walking along a beach somewhere on the outskirts of Boston, the sun setting slowly over the water. The air curls and tugs at them gently with a light wind. Scully closes her eyes and listens to the sound of the waves breaking and dragging against the sand. 

Despite the slight chill in the air, she’s transported back to San Diego for a moment, a place where her father would sit with her in the salty spray and gaze out onto the watery frontier with a glimmer of respect in his eyes. As a girl, she’d observed the stoic look on his face and carved her expression into a childish approximation. Now, as an adult, she wears the stoicism with a new understanding of the weariness her father must have felt when he looked out at the canvas onto which he’d chosen to paint his life.

Next to her, Mulder is quiet, tie loosened and the toe of his loafer digging at the sand idly as they stop walking. She’s unnerved by his silence, well aware of the fact that he rarely keeps his thoughts to himself for so long. Scully would ask what’s on his mind if only she could control her own. Within her, thoughts swirl nebulously, too quickly for her to grab onto one in particular. The tension and uncertainty of the last few days still crawls under her skin, making her itch.

It’s unclear whether the idea is born out of pure spontaneity or the fact that she’d been awake for nearly forty-eight hours, but it occurs to her all the same. 

Scully walks toward the water, shedding her blazer in the damp sand and kicking off her heels. Mulder watches her, a question forming on his lips but not quite becoming verbal. She pays him no mind, unbuttoning her shirt and wiggling out of her pencil skirt until most of her clothes are in a neat pile, becoming damper by the second as the wind deposits a fine saline mist on them. She’s clad only in her bra and panties, both a simple white cotton. There had been no reason or time to indulge in anything fancier after a week like this. After a moment, she strips herself of these garments too, adding them to the pile. She shivers as the cool wind ghosts across the bare skin of her back.

She glances back at him and he raises his eyebrows in a challenge. Is she really going to do this?

She smirks defiantly and her eyes reply, _watch me_.

Mulder is still, eyes trained on the outline of her figure as she dips a foot into the water experimentally. It’s cold, a shock to her system, and she relishes the way it jolts her brain into silence. Scully walks further into the water until it reaches her waist. She shivers visibly but plunges down, baptising herself in the chill of it and cleansing away the sins of the past week.

She comes up for air, gasping from the shock of the water before diving back down with more aggression. When she resurfaces, she swings her soaking hair out of her eyes and swims out a little farther, mindful of the riptide.

Scully looks back at the shore, where Mulder is watching her with equal measures of concern and fascination. Their eyes meet, and after a beat, he shrugs off his jacket and kicks off his pants. He’s less tidy than she was as he walks toward the water, leaving a trail of clothes, shoes and underwear behind him. Soon, he steps boldly into a wave as it rushes across gravel and sand. He hisses as it hits the sensitive skin of his ankles. Burning and freezing are not so different, really.

Mulder advances toward Scully as she treads water, teeth chattering. When the water reaches his chest, he loses sight of her red hair, darkened by the water and the incoming night. In her place, bubbles rise to the surface of the water.

He follows her down nobly like Orpheus into the Underworld, a fool’s errand driven by desperation. Scully is stubborn, lungs screaming in protest and body shaking with the cold as she forces herself to remain underwater. It’s a test, self-administered: how much can she take? She’s never been fair to herself. There’s a rushing sound in her sore ears.

Mulder hooks his arms under hers and heaves, a kick of his swimmer’s legs propelling them toward the surface. They’re flush against one another, chest to chest, and he can feel the thrumming of her heart and the rapid _whoosh_ of her breath as she pulls cold air into her lungs. He thinks of Antarctica, of the vile retching sounds she’d made as he’d pulled a slimy cord from her throat, of the frostbite scars that had marred her face for weeks afterward like broken glass.

Scully’s lips are purple now. She catches him eyeing them for just a moment too long before they’re on him, greedily claiming his lips and tongue. It’s undignified, sloppy and angry. He matches her energy, arms circling her small waist and teeth scraping over her bottom lip. The wind picks up and a shiver runs through them both. They pull away and he looks into her eyes, finding the blue in them frozen. The cold of the water is now too painful to withstand, so they swim back to shore and stagger into their clothing, chafing against sand and damp fabric.

The ride back to their motel is quiet, with the crappy rental car heating on high as the only soundtrack. Wordlessly, they shuffle into Scully’s room, trading quick looks at each other to assess whether they are forgiven. One of them turns on the shower and they disrobe for the second time in an hour as steam fills the bathroom.

They clamber into the shower together, eager for warmth. Tongues and lips meet under the hot spray and shivers run through their slippery bodies as they both warm up. She washes her hair with vigor and precision and he wipes away suds that make their way to her nose and chin.

Clean and slightly warmer, they fall naked into bed, too stubborn to put their tentative truce into words. He holds her tightly to him and shivers as a droplet of water from her damp hair snakes its way down his stomach and onto the sheets. Sometime during the night, as they both sleep in the comfort of their shared body warmth, the rubber band snaps back to its original position, righting things between them for now. In the morning, he’ll slip back to his own room before she wakes and they’ll board a plane to go home, their ire soothed by the ocean and each other’s bodies.


	17. "that's the easy part"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 20, Prompt #2 “that’s the easy part” - Post-Tithonus

He feeds her ice chips the morning after he arrives in New York. Despite her astoundingly quick recovery, Scully has a long road ahead of her. Like her last extended stay in a hospital, she has good days and bad days.

Thanks to the fact that she had woken up with cracked lips and a dull pain stretching from her torso to the edges of her body, this day is already shaping up to fit into the latter category. Mulder had jolted awake in the plastic chair next to her upon hearing her cough, throat dry as tinder. Now, he sits on the very edge of her bed and brings small spoonfuls of ice to her lips.

It’s still early, and neither of them say much. Scully, at least, has an excuse, slurping up the hydration greedily and letting it slide down her throat, cooling her from the inside out. The act of swallowing is about all that she can handle this morning, and she’s grateful for his help. The idea of bringing a spoon to her mouth repeatedly feels like a near-Herculean task. Mulder watches her, careful not to spill any ice on her standard issue hospital gown or the cream-colored cardigan that he’d brought along from her apartment.

Finally, as she’s crunching on a few bites of ice, he asks her.

“How are you feeling?” His eyes are soft, tired. She could lie to him and say that she feels fine and he’d be none the wiser. Either way, all she’s going to do is lay around. Instead, Scully lets out a slow breath through lips forming an ‘o’.

“Honestly?”

Mulder nods slowly, offering her another spoonful. She sips at it and swallows, a pensive look on her face.

“There’s something that not many people realize about getting shot. You might understand it, though,” She cracks a piece of ice between her molars and lets the fragments melt on her tongue. Mulder watches, concentrating.

“What’s that?”

She smiles tiredly and shakes her head when he offers her another spoonful, feeling full. “Almost dying...that’s the easy part. Crawling your way back to health is the challenge,”

Mulder smiles with her, empathizing. Neither of them enjoys spending time in the hospital, but there’s something about this particular arrangement that reminds him of last year, when they both thought she had gone into the hospital to leave in a casket or an urn. Seeing her lying in bed had nearly knocked the wind out of him before he’d remembered.

_She’s okay, she’s alive, she’s only going to get better from here on out._

“I’ll help you,” Mulder says resolutely. He means it, but it’s an offer rather than a command. He almost expects her to turn him down as part of their dance.

He watches Scully’s face as he takes one of her hands, dry and red from hospital soap and extended deprivation of her fancy lotions back home. When her face betrays no sign of pain at her arm being slowly moved, he brings the back of her hand to his lips and kisses it, nuzzles against it lightly. She cups his scratchy jaw and smiles at him, life illuminating her features and driving away pain from the forefront of her mind.

Her land lowers slowly, but stays entwined with his.

“Okay,”


	18. "that didn't stop you before"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 21, Prompt #4 “that didn’t stop you before”
> 
> A sequel to Chapter 14

They collapse into the oasis of Mulder’s hotel room, a bottle of wine swiped from the seminar mixer in hand. Mulder sets the bottle down on the standard-issue desk and flops down on his bed, sighing dramatically as he lands on his belly.

“Speaking as someone who has literally been tortured before, that was _torture_ ,” He whines, toeing off his shoes and mashing his face into the blanket. Scully rolls her eyes and tucks his shoes out of the way before sitting on the edge of the bed.

“One more day, Mulder, and then we can go back to Washington and forget that this ever happened,” She reconsiders. “Although, I suppose the point of this whole thing is to teach us long-term communication skills,”

Mulder flips onto his back and sits up on his elbows, looking at her. “The only thing I’ve learned so far is how to tell outrageous lies without laughing and giving myself away,” He grins, mood improving as he thinks back to the icebreakers earlier in the day. “Can you believe that they thought I was serious when I said I have eight toes on my left foot? I really thought someone was going to call me on it,”

Scully raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think anyone wanted tangible proof.” She smirks, standing and uncorking the bottle of wine. “Maybe we should go into acting. I told my group that I became a doctor at age fourteen like Doogie Howser,”

Mulder laughs, surprised and amused by this information. “You didn’t!”

She nods, pouring wine into paper cups and passing him one. “I think they were impressed. I, for one, feel very safe now that I know that these people are keeping the crime in check in this country,”

Mulder nods solemnly. “No need to even lock your doors at night with these geniuses on the case,” He sits back in bed and flips on the television. “Come on, Scully, stay awhile. I bet we can find something abysmal to watch,”

She bites her lip, playing coy. “I don’t know, doesn’t this count as _consorting_?”

Mulder snorts into his wine, thinking of a night in Bellefleur, Scully clad in a thin robe, of all-nighters spent in the same room, pouring over evidence, of the occasional accidental nap that leads them to wake up in the same bed with their blazers still on. Mostly, he thinks of the shape of her body in the candlelight and the feeling of opening up to someone over the sounds of a storm.

“That didn’t stop you before,”


	19. "you don't see it?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 22, Prompt #18 “you don’t see it?”

Neither Mulder nor Scully are built for such a landlocked place. He grew up on an island, surrounded by water on all sides. Her family never strayed too far from the sea, first in California and then in Maryland, as if sheer proximity to the water would connect them to their patriarch, called away by the siren song of duty.

Now, they float through a different type of ocean. Waves of withered crops, dry and shaking in the wind. The smoke from a distant bonfire, climbing skyward like a flare. Brittle hay crunches underfoot as hawks circle overhead.

They had set sail through the heartland earlier that morning, charmed by visions of pumpkin patches and apple cider donuts. With a case closed and twelve hours between them and their flight home, it had seemed like the perfect opportunity for some innocent tourism. Apparently, nobody had told the occupants of this flyover state that they’re supposed to be celebrating the season instead of harvesting and hunkering down for winter. Don’t they know that the city folks are clambering for an escape to simpler times?

With time to kill and not much else to do, they meander along the side of a withered, brown field.

Autumn is like a death rattle, nature’s last clutch on life slipping away slowly, giving over to the sickly sweet smell of decay. Scully knows this better than anyone, having chosen to surround herself with death despite her training to sustain life. Like overripe apples left to rot on the branch, she knows the feeling of being slowly claimed by death from the inside. Now, in remission, she regards the scene around her like Persephone, a visitor to the Underworld, destined to return ad infinitum. 

A rushing wind scatters leaves around Scully and she shivers. A few moments later, the heavy weight of Mulder’s coat lands on her shoulders. She feels small, already swimming in one of his cable-knit sweaters that smells of Irish Spring and motel coffee. Now she is bathed in his residual warmth, too.

“What are you thinking about?” He asks, lips at the crown of her head. She shivers at the intrusion of his hot breath into her wind-chilled hair and leans back into his arms, which encircle her chest.

“You don’t want to know,” She says lightly.

“Impossible,” He mutters into her hair, rubbing her arms to keep her warm. “I always want to know,”

Scully pauses, thinking. “It’s interesting how nature can make death seem so elegant,”

“Oh?”

“You don’t see it?”

Mulder shrugs. “Not the way you do, I guess. Help me understand what’s going on in your head,”

Scully looks down at the ground, crunching a dry leaf under her boot. “It’s dependable, I guess. What else dies and comes back again like clockwork? We hardly receive that same guarantee,”

“I don’t know about that,” Mulder replies, bending down to place a warm kiss on her cold cheek. “You’ve certainly risen from the ashes a few times,”

She smiles, closing her eyes and treasuring the warmth of his embrace against the chill in the air. “Well, I can’t leave you behind, can I?”

There’s something deeper to the statement, a promise that neither of them feel the need to voice aloud. He takes the easier way out, makes light of the underlying implications.

“You better not, and I’ll do my best not to leave you either. I guess the worst case scenario is that I’ll come back to haunt you as a ghost,”

She considers this. “Well, at least you’d have proof that ghosts exist,”

Mulder laughs a little and glances up at the sky, noting the swirling ouroboros that threatens to unleash an icy downpour on them at any moment.

“Come on, Scully. This may have been a bust, but there’s gotta be a place around here with some decent pumpkin pie, at least,”

They hunker down in a small cafe and order strong black coffee and two slices of pie. As she watches Mulder stir sugar into his mug and dig his fork into his food, Scully’s heart constricts with the magnitude of her love for him. She knows that, like life returning to a barren land after a long winter, she’ll always come back to him.


	20. "yes I did, what about it?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 23, Prompt #7 “yes I did, what about it?” (set in my AU in which Emily lives and is adopted by Scully)

It’s Monday morning, and there’s only one man in the Hoover Building who’s happy about it.

Mulder whistles jovially to himself as he unlocks the door to the basement office and steps inside, shedding his topcoat at the door and powering on his computer. He’d managed an entire day without working yesterday at Skinner’s insistence that he start respecting the convention of weekends. Now, back in his haven for the extraordinary, he sighs happily and leans back in his chair.

Scully’s not in yet, which would have been odd before she’d adopted Emily. However, thanks to the unpredictable challenges associated with rousing a small child from sleep and getting them out the door and into the Bureau daycare, her arrival time tends to be a bit more variable these days.

Still, when Scully still does not make an appearance forty-five minutes after Mulder clocks in, he begins to worry. There’s no way that Scully and Emily could have been snatched from the street or the parking garage on the way in, is there? No, of course not. He’s being ridiculous. If she needed him, she’d call him.

After another half hour has passed, Mulder’s hand itches toward the phone on his desk. Clearly, something is keeping Scully away from work. It would be rude to bother her. Still, he reasons with himself, this is _technically_ a work-related call, and it’s only rational to find out whether she is coming in today.

After sufficiently reassuring himself that he’s not being clingy, Mulder dials the number for Scully’s apartment. Five rings later, she picks up.

“Hello?” Scully asks groggily in a barbed-wire voice.

“Hey, Scully, it’s me,”

“Mulder?” She asks. The word sounds more like _Bulder_ and she sniffs loudly before sneezing.

“The one and only. I was calling to ask if you were coming in today, but it sounds like you’re out of commission, huh?”

There’s a chorus of sneezes and coughs from her and a higher-pitched voice in the background. “I knew I was forgetting something,” Scully groans when she collects herself. “Emily started feeling sick last night so I decided to keep her home. I would have called, but I caught whatever she has and my brain is a bit...foggy,”

“Do you think she picked it up from daycare?” His problem-solving expertise swivels swifty from cryptids and aliens to two stoically sick girls lying in bed across town. It may not be the most useful question, but he wants to get to the bottom of this.

She sighs weakly. “Bill and Tara visited over the weekend and I suspect that she caught it from Matthew. I talked to Tara last night and she said they’re all sick, too.

In the background, over the sound of cartoons, he hears Emily’s gleeful laugh turn into a hacking cough.

“How is she, Scully?” He asks soberly.

He can hear her shuffle around under blankets, presumably turning away from Emily. “She’s okay, but this is hitting her harder than it’s hitting me. I’m afraid that her immune system is still fairly weak due to the anemia. I’m not too worried yet, she doesn’t have a fever and seems to be in a pretty decent mood,” Scully whispers.

Mulder, still coming down from residual nerves, huffs out a relieved sigh and closes his eyes. He has too many memories of Emily, sweat-soaked and weak in a hospital bed. A cold is bad, but 

it’s a cake walk compared to what that little girl has been through.

“And what about you?” He asks, concern clouding his mind as she coughs wetly into the phone and groans. 

“You know how it is, Mulder. If she gets sick, I get sick. But I’m okay, I just feel like crap. I can handle myself,”

He’d done his research, had kept up with all of the literature concerning her chemotherapy treatments when she’d been sick. Mulder knows that Scully’s immune system is pretty damn weak, too, but he’s not about to call her out on it. Instead of bothering her with his anxiety, he worries his bottom lip, making steady progress toward chewing a hole clean through it.

“Are you guys going to be okay, Scully? Is there anything you need?”

Scully coughs again and blows her nose. Mulder pulls the phone away from his ear a bit, grimacing at the sound.

“We’ll be okay. It’s most likely just a common cold. We need lots of rest in bed and cartoons. That’s my medical recommendation. Right Emily?”

There’s a brief clambering sound as Emily takes the phone out of her mother’s hand. “Yep! She even wrote it on a post-it note, so it’s official,” She sneezes directly into the phone and Scully sighs in the background.

“I’m going to have to soak that entire thing in bleach,” Mulder hears her mutter. He smiles, reassured by the classic sound of her annoyance.

“Alright, Emily. Get lots of rest and take care of your mom for me, okay?” He asks in mock-seriousness.

“Will do, Mulder,” Emily says before passing the phone back to her mother. She hasn’t quite mastered the ins and outs of phone etiquette yet, but that’s alright.

“Me again,” Scully says before yawning. “I assume you’ll be okay without me?”

“Hm, today was going to be the day that I finally admitted that extraterrestrial life is a farce and that Bigfoot is nothing more than a hoax, but I guess since you’re not here I’ll just have to cancel that indefinitely,”

“What a pity,” Scully responds dryly. “Will you let Skinner know that I won’t be in?”

“Of course, I’ll take care of it. Just focus on resting, and enjoy some cartoons for me,”

“Will do, Mulder,” Scully says, echoing her daughter and hanging up.

Mulder sets the phone down and slumps down in his chair, relieved. There are no monsters or psychopaths or shadow governments keeping Scully from him today. Just a common cold. He’s torn between feeling sympathetic toward their suffering and feeling grateful that it’s such an ordinary problem.

After a quick call to Skinner, Mulder makes a valiant attempt at productivity. He answers a few emails, adds a paragraph or two to a report, and embeds far too many sharpened pencils in the ceiling. By lunchtime, all he can think about is whether Scully and Emily are eating enough and whether Emily is still fever-free. Surely, if he leaves now, he can stop by to check on them and be back for some distraction-free work in less than an hour.

\--

One of the many reasons Scully is such an asset to the X-Files is that she’s so much better at math than he is. Forty-five minutes after he’d promised himself to return within the hour, Mulder stands outside her apartment, balancing bags filled with soup from the cafe down the street and cartons of ice cream in his arms. So much for a productive work day.

Mulder knocks thrice before using his own key to unlock the door and entering the apartment. He stows the ice cream in the freezer and sets the soup, still warm, on the counter before tiptoeing down to the master bedroom. From the indentations in the carpet, it looks like Scully had dragged the television into her bedroom.

His suspicions are confirmed when the sounds of childish voices and tinny music grow louder as he approaches the door. Not wanting to alarm either of them, Mulder gently knocks on the door before walking in slowly. Scully is sitting up in bed, hair mussed and pajamas wrinkled. Despite her wan appearance, she smiles when she sees him.

In her lap, Emily dozes at an awkward angle, snuffling in her sleep. Scully rubs her daughters back in a constant rhythm and holds a finger up to her lips, silently shushing Mulder before he can accidentally wake Emily up. He nods and waves awkwardly before walking closer to the bed. He leans down to kiss the smooth skin of her forehead, relieved to find it no warmer than normal.

“Are you hungry? I brought soup and ice cream,” He whispers to her, his voice barely audible. Emily, with detection skills that some FBI agents would kill for, wakes anyway.

“Mulder?” She asks in a small voice, wriggling in her mother’s arms so she can look at him. Mulder smiles comfortingly and sweeps some of her messy hair off her forehead.

“Hey, sleeping beauty. How ya feeling?”

“I don’t feel good,” Emily says, using a fist to swipe away sleep from one of her bleary eyes. Scully kisses the top of her head and Mulder hums in sympathy.

“I know you don’t, but you’re doing such a good job resting, and you’ve got the best doctor in the entire world taking care of you,” He winks at Scully, who smiles fondly at him. “Would ice cream make you feel better?”

Emily’s ears perk up at the mention of sweets. She looks at Scully, who nods, unable to deny her daughter anything when she is unwell. “Ice cream would help a lot, Mulder,” She says seriously. Mulder nods and salutes before looking up at Scully.

“And for you, miss?”

“Soup sounds great, Mulder, thanks,” She stretches shaky arms above her head and makes to rise out of bed before Mulder gently pushes her back into the pillows. 

“None of that, Scully. Just stay there and I’ll be right back,” He turns on his heel and heads toward the kitchen. Once there, he fixes a small bowl of Cherry Garcia for Emily and a steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup for Scully. He carries both bowls carefully into the bedroom and sets them on the bedside table. 

Scully takes a deep breath through her congested nose and smiles. “I must be hallucinating. Did you really leave work to bring us food?”

Mulder unfolds a napkin and sets it on Emily’s lap before handing her the bowl of ice cream. “Yes I did, what about it?” He raises an eyebrow, challenging her playfully as she brings a spoonful of soup to her lips and sips at it carefully. The sound of appreciation she makes is nourishing to him in its own way.

“I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all,” She looks up at him. “But I really appreciate it,”

Mulder sits on the lower corner of the bed and watches them both eat. Emily seems to regain a little energy as she inhales her ice cream and licks the spoon. Scully pauses after each spoonful of soup, letting it fill her and warm her achy body.

“I want you to expect it,” Mulder says quietly. “I want you to know that I’ll be here to take care of you guys. I know you don’t need my help but...I like helping,” He smiles sheepishly and Scully opens her arms. He hugs her and presses his lips to the corner of her mouth. 

“Mulder, you’re going to get sick,” She whines half-heartedly.

“Don’t care,” Mulder mutters, pressing another kiss to the top of her head and ruffling Emily’s hair fondly.

Full and content, Scully and Emily both fall asleep shortly after their unconventional lunch. Once he’s sure they’re really out, Mulder makes quick work of cleaning up the bowls and settles himself on the couch in the other room.

He’ll be here when they wake up and need him again, and hopefully with time, Scully will understand that he’ll always be here to care for her and Emily.


	21. "do I have to do everything here?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 24, Prompt #28 “do I have to do everything here?” - NSFW
> 
> based on a the prompt: “While on a case, Mulder finds one of those cute little vibrators that looks like a lipstick in Scully’s purse (idk she dropped it or smth). And he’s pretty dense and doesn’t know why it starts vibrating. Awkwardness ensues.”

The only sounds that accompany Mulder and Scully as their rental car sails through backroads is the crunch of their tires over poorly maintained streets and the occasional jump of static on the radio. Scully sits at the wheel, fingers tapping against it agitatedly as Mulder fights with the map in the passenger seat.

“Are you positive that we didn’t pass the motel?” She asks for the twelfth time that night. Mulder looks up at her over the rims of his round reading glasses.

“As sure as I can be. You’re the one watching the road, I think you would have seen it,” He retorts before burying his nose in the map again, as if sheer proximity will force it to reveal its secrets to him. “Besides, what’s got you so antsy? We don’t officially start working on this case until tomorrow morning,”

Scully shifts subtly in her seat and bites her bottom lip. “I’m just tired, that’s all. I could do with a lie down,”

Mulder hums in acknowledgement and clears his throat roughly before coughing.

“Do you have any water? The air on that plane was so dry, it feels like I swallowed sand,”

Scully nods as she carefully maneuvers the car around sharp curves in the dark. “There should be an unopened bottle in my bag, you can just grab it out of there,”

“Thanks,” Mulder shoves the map in the glovebox, crinkling it in ways that defy physics, and unbuckles to lean back and grab Scully’s carry-on bag from the backseat. He pulls the bag onto his lap and reaches inside, hand fumbling blindly for the promised bottle of water. His fingers close around a smooth cylinder that ends in a slightly rounded tip, presumably one of the many tubes of lipstick that Scully carries with her, constantly striving to color her lips in with a hue that occupies the middle ground between stunningly sexy and diligently professional. It’s a tightrope walk that she balances upon with ease after years of practice, and it drives him crazy if he lets his eyes linger on her lips for too long.

Mulder attempts to shove the tube of lipstick out of the way, jamming his thumb against the flat end of it. To his surprise, the lipstick comes to life under his fingers and begins vibrating. A low hum, masked by the other contents of Scully’s bag, fills the car.

“Uh, Scully,” He asks, clearing his throat again. “Why is your lipstick vibrating?”

In a move that would appear nonplussed to anyone but Mulder, who considers himself fairly skilled at reading her expressions, Scully’s face gives nothing away except for the widening of her eyes as she stares straight down the road. Her hands remain at ten and two on the steering wheel, which she grips a little harder.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” She says lightly. Mulder looks at her doubtfully before pulling the tube in question out of her bag. He accidentally twists the base of it and the hum of the vibrations increases in pitch.

“I know I’m not a makeup expert, but I’m fairly sure that this isn’t normal,” His lips quirk up into a smile. “Could be an X-File,”

Even in the dim light of the car, it’s obvious that Scully flushes a deep red from her neck to her cheeks. She sighs and takes one hand off the wheel to grab the lipstick from Mulder. In a fluid, practiced move, she clicks the flat base of the tube with her thumb and the vibrations cease.

“Does that function, uh, help with lipstick application?” Mulder asks innocently, looking at the tube in her hand curiously. Scully shakes her head and reaches across the cupholders between them to drop the lipstick back in the bag. She pulls out a small bottle of water and hands it to Mulder.

“That’s not lipstick,” She admits reluctantly through gritted teeth. Mulder takes a few sips of the water and cocks his head at her, confused.

“Well, what is it then?”

Scully, resigned and tired from their journey, swallows heavily before replying. “It’s my travel vibrator,”

Mulder’s face lights up immediately with arousal and amusement. “Your _travel vibrator_?”

“...yes,”

“Your travel vibrator that is disguised as a tube of lipstick?”

“It’s _supposed_ to be discrete,”

“Wait, wait,” He takes another swig of water and grins at her. “Does this mean that you have other vibrators that you don’t take on trips?”

Scully nods, some of her embarrassment eased by how excited Mulder is. He’s seen her naked, dammit. He’s given her more orgasms than that rinky dink contraption in her bag has. Why should she be embarrassed about owning up to her vibrator collection?

“That is typically what the word _travel_ implies,”

Mulder’s mouth hangs open as his eyes sweep over her hungrily. “Holy shit,” He pauses and thinks for a moment before pointing an accusatory finger at her. “You were going to use that tonight! That’s why you were so eager to get to the motel!”

“No, that’s why I _am_ so eager to get to the hotel,” Scully corrects him patiently. “And we still seem to be lost, so let’s talk about this later, okay?”

Mulder acquiesces, pulling the map back out and belatedly realizing that he had been reading it upside down.

\--

Scully brushes her teeth and paces around her motel room, finally settling in after her customary bedbug check and toiletry unpacking ritual. From her reflection, it’s clear that the flush that had heated her face for the rest of the drive has finally subsided.

She spits in the sink and rinses her mouth, swishing the water around her cheeks aggressively, as if the motion will relieve her of her residual mortification. Truth be told, she hadn’t even considered the fact that Mulder could find her vibrator when she’d told him to look in her bag. She still isn’t sure what to make of his reaction. Clearly, some part of him was turned on by the idea of her using a vibrator on herself. She wonders if that’s something he’d like to see.

As Scully scrubs makeup from her face and applies moisturizer to her cheeks and forehead, the idea of showing Mulder just what that vibrator is capable of becomes more and more appealing to her. She imagines herself spread open, his gaze landing between her legs as she drags the tip of it between her folds.

Before an entire plan has formed in her head, Scully grabs the vibrator from her bag and knocks on the door adjoining her room to Mulder’s.

He opens the door immediately, one of his hands still paused in mid-air as if he had been about to knock on it.

“Hey,” He says, eyes flickering down to her hands, fingers wrapped around the sleek black vibrator. It really does look like a tube of lipstick from the outside.

“Hey,” She replies, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him. He meets her halfway, bending down slightly and pressing just the tip of his tongue into her mouth.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Scully?” He asks, pulling away breathlessly, eyes dark with arousal.

Scully smirks, holding up the vibrator and uncapping it. “I think, Mulder, you’ll find that the pleasure is all mine,”

\--

Scully lies naked on the motel sheets, fingernails lightly tracing up the sensitive skin at the inside of her thigh. From a chair at the foot of the bed, Mulder watches her with dark eyes. She hasn’t even touched herself between her thighs yet, but he’s already hard, his tip leaking a spot in his boxer briefs.

They’d decided to avoid sex while on duty, but it hardly counts as sex if he’s only watching her get herself off, right?

“Jesus, Scully,” He practically growls as she reaches a hand up to grope her breast and flick her own nipple. “Do you usually do all of this when you’re by yourself?”

She raises up onto her forearms and looks at his clothed cock pointedly. “You seem to be enjoying it,” She says before lowering back down and giving her other breast the same treatment. Her other hand rakes over her folds, through the hair at the apex of her thighs and up the soft plane of her stomach until she is grasping at both of her breasts, squeezing her nipples and sighing contentedly.

Mulder glances down between her legs to find that she is growing wetter from the movements. He licks his lips, aching to taste her pink flesh.

Scully reaches a hand out and grasps for her vibrator, fingers closing around it eagerly. Whoever had created the device had been awfully committed to its disguise. Even uncapped, it looks like a simple tube of red lipstick, complete with a slanted top. Only the small button at the bottom gives it away. She runs it through her folds and swirls it around her opening for a moment, coating the red tip of it in her own wetness. Then, with a swift click, the vibrator turns on.

Mulder watches her movements with dark eyes, palming his cock through his underwear. It’s impossible not to touch himself with this happening less than three feet in front of him, and Scully had given him permission before stripping down. It’s fascinating, the way she takes such care when touching herself. Still, in other ways she’s much rougher than he would be, Mulder considers as she tweaks sharply at one of her nipples, breath hitching.

Scully, aroused by her audience and the looks she keeps catching him giving her between the frame of her open and bent legs, brings the vibrator to her clitoris. She circles it slowly, not quite touching it directly. They have nothing but time, and she knows from experience that jumping right in will leave her more sensitive than satisfied. She brings her other hand down to twist at the base of the tube, flicking the vibrator’s settings up another level. As the speed of the vibrations increase, Scully lets out a whine, grinding down on the tip of it and grasping at the white sheets with her free hand.

“Tell me how it feels,” Mulder says in a low voice as he reaches into his boxers and strokes the bare skin of his cock slowly. He refuses to come before she does.

“It feels amazing,” Scully responds breathily, eyes fluttering closed as she presses the tip of the faux lipstick to her clitoris. A high-pitched whine escapes her lips and goes directly to Mulder’s dick, which twitches in his hand. “But it’s usually a poor substitute for you,”

“I don’t know about that,” Mulder says slowly, fighting to keep composure in his voice. “It seems like it’s doing the job. Maybe I should fuck you and use that on you at the same time one of these days, how about that?”

“Oh, Mulder, yes,” Scully moans, pressing the vibrator against herself in little pulses. It’s hard for Mulder to tell if she actually heard him or if she’s just moaning his name, lost in the ecstasy of it all. The pace of his hand around his cock increases.

Scully’s breathing becomes quicker and her chest and cheeks begin to turn pink, telltale signs that her climax is nearing. She increases the speed of the vibrator once more and cries out as the vibrations hit her clitoris. Her hand that had been grabbing onto the sheets for dear life reaches down and she pumps a finger into herself frantically before adding another.

Mulder watches her in complete awe, hand stilling on his dick from the shock. She’s beautiful like this, fucking herself on her own hand and grinding down against the vibrator. She’s all motion, squirming and mewling, chest rising and falling rapidly. Scully is teetering on the edge, and he thinks he can help send her over it without even touching her.

“Come for me, Scully,” Mulder whispers. “Make yourself come for me,”

Scully’s back arches as she cries out, collapsing under the weight of her orgasm. She yanks the vibrator away from her clitoris, but slowly pumps her fingers in and out of herself until she has ridden out the entirety of her climax. Only then does she pull her soaked fingers from her cunt, breathing shakily.

Before she can decide what to do next, Mulder leans forward and gently takes her wrist, sucking her wet fingers into his mouth and cleaning them with his tongue. Scully sits up, gorgeous in her post-orgasm glow, cheeks pink and eyes alight.

“Wow,” Is all he can say, rendered speechless by the power of her. It turns out that he need not speak, because Scully has plans of her own. She eyes his straining erection, standing and pulling the blanket from the bed onto the floor in front of Mulder. Scully lowers herself down onto her knees in front of him and runs a hand up his thigh, chin tilted upward to meet his eye.

“Now it’s your turn,” She says, still slightly out of breath. Mulder nods wordlessly, afraid of breaking the moment like a finger through a soap bubble.

Scully pulls his cock from his boxers and he helps her drag the underwear down his legs until they are in a pile on the floor. Her small hand works up and down the shaft of him before she cups his balls for a moment. Then, still riding the high of her own orgasm, Scully takes Mulder’s cock into her mouth, licking the head before plunging down on it.

On a reflex, Mulder’s eyes squeeze shut as Scully’s wet tongue and cheeks envelope him in delicious pressure. She wastes no time, bobbing her head up and down and pausing as low as she can go without choking on him. Saliva drips down her chin and onto the floor.

Mulder, who had already been turned on beyond belief from her display, knows he won’t last long. One of his hands settles in her mussed hair, simply holding as opposed to pushing or pulling. As she takes him deeper and hums around the weight of his cock, his fingers tighten.

“Scully-” He chokes out, voice hoarse. “I’m close-”

She pauses to look up at him through her lashes before sucking and licking with increased vigor. One of her hands snakes up between his legs to stroke his balls, and suddenly Mulder sees white hot sparks behind his eyelids as he comes hard. Scully swallows all of him, gripping his thigh and stroking the inside of it with her thumb. She sucks him down until he’s totally spent and then lets his cock fall out of her mouth.

Mulder takes her up into his lap and kisses her deeply. They taste themselves on each other's tongues.

Foregoing their usual rule of abstaining from sharing beds while on duty, Mulder and Scully slip under the covers of her bed, delightfully tired from their individual orgasms.

“You’re pretty skilled with that thing,” Mulder whispers into the skin of her shoulder, planting kisses and light nips there. “I’m worried it’ll make me obsolete,”

He need not worry, because the next time Scully pulls out her (non-travel) vibrator in his presence, it will only take her a few minutes to say “Do I have to do everything here?”

He’ll take the device from her hands and show her how quick of a learner he can be.


	22. "just say it"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 25, Prompt #30 “just say it”
> 
> TW - Vomiting

The first thing Scully is greeted with upon her return to consciousness is a painful pounding from the inside of her skull. Dizziness follows this feeling closely and she groans, keeping her eyes firmly shut.

“Oh _fuck_ ,”

“Huh, you were saying that a lot last night,” A gruff male voice says from across whatever room she’s in. It takes a moment for Scully’s sore brain to match a voice to a name.

“Mulder,” She groans.

“Yeah, you said that a lot too,”

Scully hesitantly opens her eyes and discovers that the world has rotated ninety degrees and become slightly fluid during her slumber. Either her understanding of the laws of physics has been rendered completely obsolete overnight, or she is hungover and laying on Mulder’s couch. Occam’s razor would dictate that the latter is true. Scully unsticks her cheek from the leather of the couch and sits up slowly, wincing at the movement. She squints at Mulder, who is sitting at his kitchen table, looking as shitty as she feels and pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“That’s funny, Mulder,” She deadpans, filling in what kind of activities they might have engaged in last night based on context clues.

Mulder, dressed only in a grey t-shirt and a pair of underwear, takes a long sip from his coffee. “Scully, if you think that’s funny then things are about to get _hilarious_ ,”

She raises an eyebrow, finding that her hangover has not yet extended to her facial expressions, and looks down at herself, finding that she is naked save for a blanket that Mulder had presumably draped over her while she slept.

“What happened last night?” She asks, feeling obtuse. “Besides the obvious,”

Mulder refuses to meet her eye, looking down at his lap and fidgeting with the handle of his mug. “Well, the good news is that we learned that tequila is an aphrodisiac for both of us, apparently,”

The mere mention of alcohol turns Scully’s stomach and she slaps a hand over her mouth as nausea passes through her in waves. Mulder looks slightly alarmed until she drops her hand and looks at him expectantly.

“I wouldn’t talk about that if you want to keep this blanket clean,” She warns. “Skip that part, I think I can figure out how I got this headache,”

Mulder laughs with all the humor of a man stepping up to a guillotine. “If you wait fifteen minutes it’ll probably all come rushing back to you. That’s what happened to me.”

She fixes him with an unimpressed look.

“Well, I’m not really sure how to explain, I remember some of it, but it still doesn’t make complete sense to me-”

“Dammit, Mulder, just say it,” She hisses at him angrily before recoiling at the volume of her own voice. Even from the kitchen, Mulder winces.

“Geez Scully, inside voice please. I know I’m still as energetic and sexy as I was when I was in college, but shockingly I can no longer drink as much as I did without consequences,” He massages the bridge of his nose between his pointer finger and thumb.

“Sorry,” She mutters at a much more acceptable volume. Unfortunately, the phone suddenly rings, the shrill sound of it cutting through the alcohol-soaked jelly of their brains like a blade. Scully groans and pulls the blanket up over her head, covering her ears. Mulder makes a halfhearted attempt to answer the phone before giving up and sitting on the couch next to her. The answering machine eventually, blessedly, stops the ringing and Scully’s head emerges from the blanket.

After a beep, Skinner’s voice fills the room.

“Agent Mulder, I received your call from last night.” Skinner sounds uncomfortable, and Scully can imagine him tapping his fingers on his desk and deliberating over his next words. “Obviously, we will need to talk about the logistics of this change, there will be a mountain of paperwork that I’m sure you’ll despise. But that’s what you get for doing this so quickly,” He laughs awkwardly. “We’ll discuss this more when you come in next, but from the state you were in last night, it sounds like that might take a day or two. Please accept my congratulations and extend them to Agent Scully,” The message ends with a long beep.

Scully’s brain, processing everything at half-speed thanks to half a bottle of tequila on an empty stomach, lets Skinner’s words sink in. Mulder stares straight ahead, mouth hanging open and bleary eyes wide with growing panic.

“I thought maybe I had dreamed it,” He mutters to himself.

“What is Skinner congratulating us for, Mulder?” Scully asks, feeling agitation and dread starting to emerge like an ocean pulling inward on itself before a tsunami.

“Um,” Mulder replies, running a hand through his hair and tapping his foot anxiously.

“Mulder,” She growls at him, pulse quickening and stomach souring. “Tell me what’s going on right now,”

He looks at her hesitantly, almost pitifully, before reaching over to grab her left hand. She feels the urge to yank it away from him, but forces herself to remain still and pliant under his touch. The light streaming in through his blinds glints off of a simple ring on her finger.

“Good morning, Mrs. Spooky,” He says mournfully.

That’s the final nail in the coffin. Mulder’s blanket is safe, but Scully drags it with her to the bathroom as the tequila from the previous night makes a reappearance.


	23. "sometimes you can even see"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 26, Prompt #25 “sometimes you can even see” - Buzzfeed Unsolved AU

_Partial Transcript of “Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural: The Historical Horrors of Washington, D.C.”_

INT: The Buzzfeed Unsolved set. Mulder and Scully sit at their usual desk.

MULDER: This week on _Buzzfeed Unsolved_ , we’ll be tackling the Octagon House, one of the most haunted locations in Washington, D.C.

SCULLY: Ah yes, the nation’s capital.

MULDER: (grins) That’s right, baby!

SCULLY: And instead of focusing on actual events, we’re going to desecrate the history of this town with tall tales and myths.

MULDER: If it helps, we’re not going to do any more desecrating than the people who have been voted into office. (winks)

SCULLY: If you make _one more_ Monica Lewinsky joke, I’m going to rip up my contract and walk off this set.

MULDER: I love that our relationship is based on the fact that you’re contractually obligated to listen to me talk about ghosts and aliens.

SCULLY: (rolls eyes) And you’re obligated to listen to me debunk all of your little theories.

MULDER: Prepare to eat those words, Scully, because this place is so spooky that it just might change your mind for good. Let’s get into it…

\--

EXT: The sidewalk outside the Octagon House, sunset. Mulder and Scully assemble their equipment as Mulder addresses one of the cameras.

MULDER: Here we are. You can almost feel the power of the place from just standing near it, can’t you?

SCULLY: It is interesting that President and Dolley Madison lived here for a while, I’ll give you that.

MULDER: (points to the front door) She’s one of the most frequently reported ghosts here. It’s been said that sometimes you can even see her ghost roaming the front hall and smell lilacs when her spirit is present.

(pause)

SCULLY: Okay, I just have a few clarifying questions about that.

MULDER: (strapping a POV camera to his chest) Go ahead.

SCULLY: The laws of physics would suggest that any observable phenomenon associated with the paranormal, like a visible apparition, would result from energy that has been quantized into a physical form such as particles of light. If a ghost can be seen with the naked eye, one would have to assume that it’s reflecting wavelengths from the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, right? And _that_ would mean that the ghost would have to be made of particles from which the energy could be reflected. But seeing as how matter can’t just pop into existence apropos of nothing, and these ghosts apparently appear and disappear at will, there seems to be a discrepancy between the way the ghosts are described and the laws of physics. Care to clear up that conflict for me and the viewers at home?

MULDER:...Scully, you’re the physicist here. I just tell the stories and talk to the spirits.

SCULLY: (sigh)

\--

INT: Inside the Octagon House, Mulder and Scully sit on the main staircase as Mulder pulls out the Spirit Box.

MULDER: (speaking to the ghosts) Alright, I have something here that will allow you to speak to me and my partner more easily. (Turns on Spirit Box) My name is Mulder and this is Scully. Can you say our names back to us?

(garbled static)

MULDER: Did you hear that? It sounded like “welcome”.

SCULLY: I didn’t hear anything. Besides, this device rapidly scans through radio channels. It’s entirely possible that we could just pick up a few words from a sports broadcast or weather report. There’s absolutely no evidence to support the idea that spirits can manipulate pre-existing radio waves. It’s an expensive piece of junk.

(The Spirit Box clearly says the word “Starbuck”)

\--

VOICEOVER, POST-PRODUCTION (Editor’s Note: Cut from episode at the request of Fox Mulder)

MULDER: You’re not seriously telling me that you don’t hear that!

SCULLY: I am _seriously_ telling you that. I don’t hear anything.

MULDER: C’mon Scully, the ghost called you by the same nickname that your father used to call you.

SCULLY: (angry) I don’t want to talk about this, Mulder. It feels disrespectful to pretend that he’s talking to me through that _thing_ for views.

MULDER: I’m sorry, that wasn’t what I was suggesting we do. I just thought it might be worth looking into for...personal reasons. He could be trying to tell you something. You seriously still want to act like nothing is going on? Even after what happened during-

SCULLY: (voice shaking) Drop it.

MULDER: Dana, wait, I’m sorry-

(door slams as Scully leaves the recording booth)

\--

INT: Master Bedroom of the Octagon House. A night vision camera focuses on Mulder and Scully as they set up their sleeping bags on the floor.

SCULLY: So what am I supposed to be in for tonight, Mulder? Ghosts poking me in the face while I’m sleeping? Waking up covered in ectoplasm? Levitating above my sleeping bag?

MULDER: I love it when you talk dirty to me, Scully. (laugh) But no, most people who have stayed the night here have reported footsteps and the smell of lilac that I mentioned earlier. Might be old Dolley coming back to say hello to the visitors. (winks) I hope you’re not the jealous type.

SCULLY: (climbing in sleeping bag) She can have you. Goodnight, Mulder.

\--

INT: Master Bedroom, later that same night. Mulder and Scully are laying closely together, even though they are in separate sleeping bags. (Editor’s Note: cut from episode at the request of Dana Scully)

(from off-screen, the piano in the next room begins to play off-key. It starts slowly, but the tune becomes recognizable as [“Beyond the Sea”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I_-0tUalX0))

SCULLY: (pulling away from Mulder and sitting up) Mulder, do you hear that?

(the music becomes louder and more frantic)

SCULLY: (shaking Mulder) Mulder, wake up. I think there’s someone in the house.

(Mulder mumbles something incoherent but otherwise remains asleep)

SCULLY: (standing up and walking off-screen) Hello? (her footsteps grow quieter as she walks toward the source of the music) Oh my god- (the music stops abruptly as Scully cries out in terror)

MULDER: (now awake, rising from the floor and running into the other room) Scully? What’s going on? Are you okay?

SCULLY: I-It’s nothing. I must have been sleepwalking. I just had the strangest dream.

(Scully and Mulder walk back on screen. He has an arm wrapped around her shoulders.)

MULDER: What about?

SCULLY: (shaking her head) Nothing. The Spirit Box session just got to me I guess, that’s all.

MULDER: (patting her on the shoulder) I’m not surprised. If I heard what I thought I heard…(shrugs) It doesn’t matter right now. Let’s go back to sleep.

(They lay back down in their previous position, a bit closer now. Mulder holds Scully close to him)

\--

EXT: Mulder and Scully stand outside the Octagon House just after sunrise the next morning.

MULDER: Well, what’s the verdict? Is this place haunted? (He nudges Scully with his elbow when she does not respond) What do you think?

SCULLY: (staring off into the distance) Hm? (she looks at Mulder) Oh. No. Of course it’s not haunted. None of these places we go to are ever haunted. But now my back hurts from sleeping on the floor, so thanks for that.

MULDER: (laughs and pats her shoulder) I owe you a massage then. Let’s get some breakfast.

\--

VOICEOVER, POST-PRODUCTION

MULDER: When one roams the streets of Washington, D.C., it’s impossible not to feel the significance of such a historical city. Stories from America’s past practically seep out of the buildings that house our governing bodies, our artefacts, the things we have decided we want to remember collectively as a nation. Is it not possible, then, that the buildings in this town may also hold memories from the past? That monuments and museums may not be the only connection we have to our country’s beginning? If ghosts are real, as I believe they are, the Octagon House is as good a candidate for a haunted dwelling as any. But for now, whether that historical landmark is haunted will remain unsolved.


	24. "unacceptable, try again"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 27, Prompt #5 “unacceptable, try again” - early Season 6 - Diana Fowley/Alex Krycek

Her heels clack against the pavement as she leaves Hegal Place, embarrassment burning in her cheeks and frustration twisting in her gut. An unopened bottle of red wine is clutched in her hand, another reminder that her plan for the night had failed.

She’d thought that she knew Mulder well, that she could read his desires and thoughts easily. Clearly, something had changed during their time apart.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a shadow appears next to hers as she approaches her car, lost in her thoughts and already halfway through planning her next attempt to gain his trust.

“How’d it go?” A low voice asks.

“Thanks for your concern, but you can save it, Alex,” Diana says disinterestedly as she unlocks the passenger door and sets the bottle of wine on the seat. She closes the door and looks at him, wondering idly how he had followed her all the way to Alexandria without catching her attention. Maybe he had crawled out of the sewer like all of the other rats in town.

Krycek scoffs “I’m not here out of the goodness of my heart, Diana. I’m just here to check on your progress and report back,” The person to whom he is reporting remains unspoken by both of them. “Did you talk to Mulder or not? We don’t have a lot of time left,”

Diana is silent and he glances over her shoulder, noticing the bottle of wine sitting in her car. Krycek smirks.

“Wow, Mulder tossed you out on your ass, huh? You must be losing your touch,”

She rolls her eyes and resists the urge to put one of her shoe’s heels through his foot. “I didn’t even get through the front door,”

Suddenly remembering that he’s here on business and not just to torment her, Krycek suddenly sobers and shakes his head. “Unacceptable, try again. Go up there and don’t take no for an answer,”

Diana crosses her arms. “He’s not alone,” She says by way of explanation.

Krycek raises his eyebrows, catching her meaning. “Agent Scully again, huh?” He hisses in sympathetic pain and pats her shoulder with his remaining hand, eyes betraying his underlying amusement. “Must sting to be replaced like that,”

Diana bites the inside of her cheek and her hand twitches at her side. She’s not usually violent or easily provoked, but hearing the laughter from inside Mulder’s apartment had already set her on edge, and Krycek’s face is just so _punchable_. Still, she feels the soothing burn of the ice in her veins and restrains herself.

“You want to talk about replacements? Fine, let’s talk,” Diana silences Krycek with a cold look and steps closer to him, speaking in a low voice. “Do you know why they brought me back from Europe to work on this? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not because I ran out of work to do over there. No, once they realized how _utterly_ useless you really are, they decided to send for someone who can actually get the job done,”

Anger flares in Kryceks eyes and he advances until Diana’s back is against the rear passenger door of her car. He looks down at her and sneers.

“ _Actually get the job done_? All I see is you walking away from another failure. If you weren’t so bad at your job, I’d think you were only interested in getting involved in this so you can go back to fucking Mulder,”

“Fuck you,” Diana hisses at him, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket.

He shoves her roughly against the side of her car, his prosthetic arm pinned between them as their lips collide. It’s an angry and sloppy kiss, teeth clacking and nipping at each other's flesh. She can smell the rancid stench of tobacco on him, evidence of where else he’s been tonight.

While Krycek works on her neck, surely dooming her to a trail of bruises there that will bloom by morning, Diana reaches behind her and fumbles with the handle of the car door. She bucks her hips against Krycek, causing him to gasp in surprised pleasure and take a step back so she can open the door.

They switch positions, flipping so he can settle into the backseat and she can crawl onto his lap, pulling the door closed behind her. Diana swings a leg over Krycek’s lap and straddles him, hiking her skirt up so she can grind herself over the bulge in his pants.

She’d gone to Mulder’s earlier tonight fully intending to work her way back into his life and work out some of her own tension in the process. It’s an old trick that had worked back in the day, before she’d left him and been replaced with the short redhead making him laugh down the street. At the thought of what may be taking place in his apartment at this moment, her head swims with rage, frustration, and desire. The feelings intermingle until they are unrecognizable on their own. High off this heady combination, Diana reaches down and works on the fly of Krycek’s pants.

Underneath her, he is moaning, lifting his hips to meet her clothed cunt. She kisses him deeply, sticking her tongue in his mouth to silence him. Diana raises up on her knees slightly to work her panties down her legs, dragging her arousal down the inside of her thighs with them. She kicks the underwear off and leaves them on the floor as Krycek works on himself, freeing his cock from the confines of his boxers and stroking it a few times. He eyes the outline of her bra in her shirt, the hardened nipples that are beginning to show through the fabric.

Diana grabs his wrist and pulls it between her legs. As his fingers slide through her folds and make contact with her clitoris, she gasps and holds him there for a few moments until she is dripping with arousal.

Her desire is like fluid under pressure, at risk of exploding should it not be relieved. Diana braces herself on Krycek’s shoulders as she sinks down onto his length. She faintly registers his hiss at the feeling of being enveloped by her, his rough hand grabbing at her hip, pulling and urging her to move. Perhaps out of spite alone, she grinds further down onto him and relishes the feeling of being filled and of making him swear in frustration.

“Dammit- would you just- come on-” Krycek growls at her. She holds her position for a second longer before her own arousal becomes overpowering, forcing her to start bouncing on him.

Krycek’s fingers dig into the skin at her waist and he babbles in one of the few languages she doesn’t speak, clearly too lost in his own head to care about getting caught. Typical. Diana shoves one, then two, fingers into his mouth and flattens them on his tongue. He complies, sucking on them as she forcefully fucks herself on his cock.

Her eyes close on instinct and she thinks of Fox, of the way he used to be gentle with her and take care to understand what she felt and wanted during sex. The pathetic, squirming man underneath her is really no comparison. Still, Diana forces herself to open her eyes and look at him while she fucks him, loathing burning a hole through her as she recalls the way he had mocked her earlier. She grinds down on him harder, causing him to cry out around her fingers.

Diana comes hard, her movements slowing as the waves of pleasure rock through her and decrease in magnitude. To make up for the loss, Krycek bucks up and into her, coming a few moments later. She pulls her fingers out of his mouth and wipes them on her shirt before crawling off of him and slumping into the middle seat. Their combined come runs down her legs and stains her skirt.

After they’ve both come back down to Earth, she looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Get out,”

“What am I supposed to tell him, Diana?” Krycek asks, shoving his dick back into his pants and zipping up his fly.

“Tell him I’ve got it handled. Because I do,” Off his doubtful look, she threatens him. “Any word of what actually happened and tonight will be the last time this happens. Got it?”

Diana watches Krycek’s face for his understanding. When he nods and leaves the car stiffly, disappearing once again, she moves to the driver’s seat and starts the engine. Her legs still shake from the exertion of doing all the work, as always.

If she doubles back and drives past Hegal Place before going home, nobody needs to know.


	25. "back up!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 28, Prompt #29 “back up!” - post-Our Town
> 
> TW - PTSD, night terrors

They find a hotel fifty miles outside of Dudley and settle in for the night, intent on catching the next flight back to Washington in the morning. On this day that seems hellbent on screwing with her head, they learn that the little ramshackle joint only has one room left. One bed. It hardly matters right now. After her sixth close encounter with death in as many months, the already-crumbling wall of professionalism between Scully and Mulder has suffered a critical blow. She’s still shell-shocked from the events earlier in the night, from her close call. She feels residual adrenaline pulse through her as she strips down to her underwear and takes a t-shirt out of Mulder’s duffel bag, pulling it over her head with shaking hands.

He watches from the other side of the room, disturbed by how quiet she’d been on the drive. Scully climbs beneath the covers of the bed and pulls them up to her chin, facing away from him. Mulder clears his throat.

“I can take the floor, or the backseat of the rental,” He suggests, already feeling phantom pains in his back and legs at the thought of curling up on the disgusting motel carpet or cramming himself into the car. Scully shakes her head, reaching behind her to pull down the covers on the other side of the bed.

“It’s fine,” Is all she says before sinking back into silence. Mulder nods, though she’s not even looking at him, and sighs, going into the bathroom to brush his teeth. He then settles himself gingerly next to Scully, careful not to touch her.

“Goodnight, Scully,” He says, at a loss for anything more significant to say. It seems like she’s already asleep, anyways, if her slow breathing and light snores are any indication. Mulder turns away from her and closes his eyes, finally feeling the slippery tendrils of exhaustion pull at his mind.

\--

Something is wrong.

He hears the shrill sound of Scully's shriek before he is completely awake. Somewhere in his sleepy mind, he thinks the smoke detector in the room has gone off before he registers the feeling of her thrashing next to him. Mulder sits up, fumbling with the lamp next to the bed and squinting in its bright yellow light.

Next to him, Scully is yelping and shouting, twisting herself in the sheets with rapid, panicked movements. He stares at her in shock for a moment before reaching out and grabbing her wrist. Her arm stops clawing at the blanket, but she fights his grip.

“Scully, hey, wake up,” He says firmly, unsure if she can hear him. He can barely hear his own voice over the sound of her yells. She’s making frightened and indistinct noises, pulling in shaky breaths in between. When she doesn’t respond, Mulder uses his other hand to shake her shoulder gently.

“Wake up, Scully! You’re alright!” He’s shouting at her now, determined to get through to her despite whatever horrors her mind is producing. His voice and touch finally have an effect, but not the one Mulder had anticipated.

Scully opens her bloodshot eyes wide, yanking her arm out of his grasp. She looks at him without really seeing him, only registering the proximity of a man that had grabbed her in her sleep. Scully kicks at him and throws her arms at him weakly, manicured nails aiming for the flesh of his cheeks.

“Back up!” She snarls at him, a sob threatening to burst from her chest. “Get the hell off of me!”

Mulder feels the sting of broken skin just under his eye and reaches out, firmly grasping her shoulders and holding Scully at arm’s length.

“Scully-Jesus Christ- Scully, it’s me! You’re alright,”

Like a marionette with cut strings, Scully’s muscles relax and she slumps down toward the mattress, blinking away tears. Her face registers, fear, then shock, then guilt.

“Mulder? Oh my god,” She whispers, recoiling while looking at his face. Mulder releases her and sits up. 

“You were having some kind of night terror, I think. Do you remember anything?”

She sits up as well, bringing her knees to her chest and putting her head between them, forcing her breathing to slow.

“No-I-no,” She says with finality, standing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s alright,” He assures her, patting at the scratch marks on his face gently. His fingers come away blood free. “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that, I’m sorry.” She chews on her bottom lip, troubled. “Are you alright?”

Scully sighs and nods hesitantly. “I’m fine. I just need a minute,”

“Take all the time you need,”

She walks into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her. Mulder can hear the shower running. He lays in bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for her to re-emerge. When she does, she wears his shirt again, the ends of her hair soaking the material. No steam follows her out of the bathroom, and when she lays back down, Mulder can almost feel the cold of the water on her skin.

Scully’s damp head hits the pillow and she curls up under the blanket.

“Turn the light off,” She instructs him quietly. 

When the room is dark once more, Mulder fidgets and whispers. “Do you want to talk about it?”

She shakes her head, sighing shakily. “I’m alright, really. The showers help, it’s like a shock to the system.” She pauses before murmuring, “But now I’m cold,”

Careful not to startle her, Mulder scoots closer to her, his legs brushing against hers. When she does not jump at the contact, he leans down to speak softly into her ear. “Is this alright?”

Scully nods and presses her back against his chest, savoring the warmth of him. Emboldened, Mulder wraps a protective arm around her and pulls her small body to his. He can feel the wetness of her hair against his chin and presses a soft kiss to the top of her head

“Try to get some sleep,” He says, reaching up to fun his fingers through the damp red locks.

“I’ll try my best,” is her reply, and within five minutes, she’s sleeping again.

Mulder follows her back to sleep soon after, surprised to find in the morning that she has not pulled herself away from his embrace.


	26. "not interested, thank you"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 29, prompt #15 “not interested, thank you”

The atmosphere of the airport is suffocating, stale air and conversations pressing in on all sides. Scully sighs and fidgets impatiently in her seat outside the gate, looking out toward the taxiing planes as if sheer willpower will stop the snow that is blanketing the runway. Next to her, Mulder looks as annoyed as she feels, tugging off his tie and shoving it in his carryon. They’re in for a long and frustrating evening if the weather report is any indication.

Around them is the carnage of holiday travel at O’Hare International Airport. Families and harried businesspeople navigate the crowded corridors between gates, pulled this way and that way by the power of yuletide agitation.

Scully bites the inside of her cheek, swallowing dread at the familiar stabbing pain just below her navel and the dull headache that accompanies it as if connected by a string. There hadn’t been sufficient downtime to really monitor the passing of the days during the frenzy of their most recent case, but Scully can put the pieces together without the aid of a calendar and figure out what’s about to happen. Great. This is just what she needs on a day when their flight has already been delayed twice.

Mulder bounces his knee impatiently and looks at the board displaying arrival and departure times. There’s been no change in the last hour, their flight is still delayed indefinitely thanks to an unforeseen snowstorm.

“Looks like we’ve got a while to go,” Mulder says, glancing around the terminal until his eyes land on the crowded airport bar two gates down. “Hey, why don’t we get a drink while we wait? I know we’re still technically on the clock, but the Bureau doesn’t have to know,” At her silence, he takes out his credit card and waves it under her nose enticingly. “My treat,”

Scully’s nails dig into her thighs thanks to a sudden and powerful cramp and she shakes her head, sighing. “Not interested, thank you,” As if her body has finally realized that she is no longer on a case and thus in some degree of mortal danger, it has stopped halting all necessary bodily functions in favor of energy conservation. She stands, hoping the tampon machine in the restroom is stocked so she doesn’t have to shell out ten dollars for a small box.

“I’ll be right back,” She says abruptly before walking away. Mulder looks at her with worry before making his way to the bar and ordering a beer.

She’s in luck, with just enough quarters for a supply of tampons to last her through the next day or so and a fully stocked machine. Small mercies, maybe it’s a Christmas miracle.

Scully leaves the ladies’ room, weaving her way perpendicularly across the steady stream of travelers in the terminal. Mulder is not where she left him, and despite the fact that he’s been known to wander around airports during long layovers, she feels annoyance spike within her. Glancing to her left, she sees Mulder sitting at the bar, jacket thrown over the back of the seat and shoulders slumped. _As if he has any right to be tired_ , she thinks to herself bitterly.

Mulder had left her bag sitting unaccompanied at her empty seat, because of _course_ he had, so she picks it up and strides over to where he’s sitting at the bar. With each step, she feels an imaginary spike being driven further into her skull.

“There you are,” Mulder says, wiping the foam from his beer off his upper lip with the back of his hand. “I was beginning to think you’d fallen in,”

She refuses to dignify that with a response, resting her elbows on the grimy bar and dropping her head into her hands. Scully knows that touching her face right now will only lead to a trail of acne wherever her fingertips meet her skin, but she doesn’t have it in her to give a damn. Scully closes her eyes, trying to block out the noise, sounds, and smells of the airport. Despite her best efforts to simply disconnect her brain from her surroundings, she can still hear the grating holiday music blaring overhead and the chatter at the bar. Mulder’s hand lands lightly on her shoulder.

“Are you alright?” He asks, leaning down and attempting to peek at the expression on her face. “You don’t look so good, no offense,” His hand moves to the back of her neck as he utilizes the extent of his medical knowledge to feel for a nonexistent fever there. “I knew we shouldn’t have gone to that sushi joint last night,”

She shakes her head, hair falling in an auburn curtain around her face. “I’m fine,” She can feel the intensity of his doubtful look without even opening her eyes and rephrases, “I’m not sick,”

“Well then what do you call this?” He asks, tone gentler. Sensing her growing discomfort, he rubs her upper back soothingly. She sighs at the contact, wishing his hand were just a bit lower. It’s wonderfully warm, pressing just the right amount on her sore muscles.

She turns toward him, resting her chin in her hand. “You know those plastic spoons that kids use to scrape out the insides of pumpkins before carving jack-o-lanterns?” She asks him cryptically.

“I, uh, I’ve seen them once or twice. What about them?”

“It currently feels like someone who is very angry with me is using one of those on the inside of my uterus,” She says plainly, gritting her teeth as the pain creeps outward from its epicenter.

“Oh,” He says, continuing to rub her back in small circles. “That sounds excruciating,”

“It doesn’t exactly add any fun to my day,”

“Well on a fun day like today, who needs the extra boost?” He says sardonically. “Are you gonna be alright?”

She nods, sitting up and stretching. “I’ll be fine, it’s not life threatening, just inconvenient and annoying. But if the last twenty years are any indication, I’ll live through it just fine,” She smiles at him wryly.

“Where does it hurt?” He asks curiously, looking her up and down as if he would be able to tell from the outside.

“Some places that you’d expect, some not so much,” She explains simply. “My abdomen, my back, my legs-”

“Your _legs_?”

She nods. “Just my thighs,”

“Holy shit,”

“Yep,”

“Does anything help?” He asks, eyes full of concern.

“Heat really helps. Sitting on a flight for two hours, not so much,”

“Plus all the lovely airport downtime,” He says sarcastically, checking the flight board one more time. No change.

“I wasn’t gonna be the one to say it,”

Mulder sighs and drains the rest of his beer. “Why don’t we get out of here?”

She raises an eyebrow. “I thought that was what we’ve been trying to do for the last four hours,”

He shakes his head, setting some cash down on the bar and standing to put his jacket back on. Her sore back mourns the loss of his hand, but she joins him in standing.

“I mean, since this storm obviously isn’t going to let up for a while, we may as well go to a place where you can be more comfortable for the night,” He explains, picking up both of their bags. “There are a few decent airport hotels nearby, and we haven’t truly pissed off the people in accounting in a while,” He looks at her. “We’ll switch our tickets for the morning and you can take a bath and relax. Come on, Scully, I know you want to,”

It’s a decision that takes all of three seconds once she mentally compares the idea of sitting in a cramped airplane seat with the idea of laying in a bathtub (albeit a hotel tub) and letting the water warm her to her bones.

“Alright,” She concedes, breaking into a grin at the thought of getting out of the airport and into her silk pajamas.

\--

When they arrive at the hotel, she wastes no time sinking into a luxurious, hot bath, a small moan leaving her lips at how _good_ the water feels on her cramping body. She lays there for at least forty-five minutes until the water has cooled.

Scully wraps herself in a fluffy towel, noting that it is much nicer than the offerings at their usual digs on trips, and walks out into her room in search of her pajamas. They sit folded on her bed, along with a Snickers bar from the vending machine down the hall and a colorful piece of paper.

_Mulder_ , she thinks fondly, dropping the towel and donning her pajamas. The paper, upon further inspection, is a flyer for a local pizza joint. Mulder had used a pen from the nightstand to circle the word _delivery_ and draw a large question mark next to it. Her stomach grumbles at the thought of pizza and she unwraps her candy, taking a large bite while walking across the hall to Mulder’s room.

He answers the door after two knocks, dressed in his grey t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Looks like Santa came early, huh?” He says, smiling and giving her a once over. She takes another bite of her Snickers bar and nods.

“I must have been pretty good this year,” She smirks and holds up the flyer for pizza as he steps aside to let her into his room.

\--

She’s curled up on his bed, full of pizza and candy after reminding herself once or twice that the body requires more calories than normal during menstruation. Mulder sits next to her, stretched out against the pillows with his arms behind his head as he watches whatever movie is playing on the television. Scully faintly registers scifi mumbo jumbo. Must be Star Trek or one of its knock-offs, then.

She’s content and sleepy after checking three times that she would not bleed through her (nice, lavender) pajamas during the night and popping a couple ibuprofen. Mulder’s presence next to her is calming, his occasional laughs at the movie bringing a drowsy smile to her face even though she has no clue what’s so funny.

She’s drifted off by the time the movie has ended, and Mulder turns the television off and tries to get off the bed without waking her. Still, she is roused out of sleep and yawns.

“What time is it?” She mumbles, eyes still closed.

“A little after one,” Mulder whispers, turning off the lamp next to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

She shrugs, waiting for her own groggy mind to produce words. “Still sore, but the bath and the food helped. I’ll feel like hell in the morning, but for now I’m good,”

“Good,” Mulder smiles, stepping into the bathroom and emerging with a toothbrush in his mouth. “Is there anything else you need?” He asked around the bristles.

Scully shakes her head and opens her eyes, taking his bedtime routine as her cue to leave. “I just wish I had brought my heating pad with me,” She says while standing slowly and stretching. “I completely forgot that my period was coming up when I was packing for this case,”

She makes toward the door, readying her goodbyes, but Mulder holds a hand out to stop her.

“Wait, maybe I can help,”

“Hm?”

She waits while he spits out his toothpaste and rinses. “We both know that I run way hotter than you. Maybe if we stay close during the night…” He’s shy suddenly. “It’s just an idea, you can walk away if I’m wrong.”

Scully shakes her head, smiling gratefully and climbing back into his bed. “You’re not wrong, that sounds nice. Come warm me up, Mulder,”

He does, climbing in bed behind her, pulling the blanket over both of them. He’s so close under the covers that she can smell his minty toothpaste and feel his breath on the back of her neck.

“Tell me where you need me,” He whispers into the darkness of the room. Scully reaches behind to grab his hand, guiding it around to her abdomen, below her belly button. She pulls the material of her top out of the way so the wide expanse of his palm and fingers are directly touching the soft skin of her belly.

It’s strange, this physical intimacy with a total lack of immediate danger. The last time their bodies had been pressed this closely was when she’d held him on the forest floor, trying desperately to keep him warm and stay awake. Now the positions are reversed, and he’s doing a much better job of keeping her warm than she had done for him. Not only is his hand warming her where it counts, but their bodies are pressed so closely that she feels warm all over from the contact. Whether that’s because of his body heat or the fact that they’re laying in bed together is still unknown to her.

“How’s this?” Mulder whispers in her ear, his breath tickling the stray hairs there. “Is this helping?”

Scully nods and yawns, feeling sleep tug at her again. “It’s perfect,” She murmurs. “Thank you, Mulder. You’ve been so sweet tonight,”

“You’re welcome,” He replies, thumb absently stroking her bare skin and making her shiver. “Go back to sleep,”

She does, and he follows her. She wakes up in the morning pleasantly surprised by how relaxed she feels.

Maybe she’ll make a habit of forgetting her heating pad more often.


	27. "I missed this"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 30, prompt # 13 “I missed this” - au in which Emily lives and is adopted by Scully - slightly NSFW

The bed is already warm and welcoming when Scully climbs into it. She snuggles against Mulder’s relaxed form, inhaling the sweet scent of him and humming contentedly.

“Is she finally asleep?” He whispers in her ear, arm encircling her and pulling her closer.

Scully nods. “It took five tries, but I think this one will work,”

“Perfect,” Mulder grins and kisses Scully deeply, bringing his hand up to cup her cheek. She moves closer to him, grasping at his ass with her small hand and savoring the feeling of his pliable lips working against hers enthusiastically.

“I missed this,” Mulder sighs and kisses along Scully’s jawline, a hand snaking up the inside of her pajamas to cup a soft breast and rub the pad of his thumb over her nipple. She moans softly and arches her back into his touch, feeling the growing erection in his own pajamas press against her thigh.

“Me too,” She says. It’s true, they haven’t had a lot of time to themselves lately with the new addition to their little unconventional family. It’s a trade-off they would both choose a hundred times over, but that doesn’t mean that they want each other any less. “God, Mulder, you have no idea how much I’ve missed this.”

She can feel his smirk against the sensitive skin of her neck as he kisses and licks there. “Oh? Why don’t you help me understand? I’m a tactile learner,”

Just as Scully is about to reach down and grasp Mulder’s length, the door to their bedroom creaks open and a sliver of light reveals two wide, frightened blue eyes.

“Mom? Mulder?”

They pull away so quickly the sound barrier may break. Thankful for the darkness that still (mostly) covers them, Scully readjusts her top and Mulder pulls the duvet well above his waist.

“What’s the matter, Emily? Did it happen again?”

She nods, sucking on her thumb and blinking away tears. If she didn’t look so terrified, Scully would remind her about not sucking her thumb, but since she obviously uses it to soothe herself, Scully lets it go tonight.

Scully stands and walks over to Emily, picking her up and kissing her cheek. “What was the nightmare about this time?” She asks gently. Emily rests her head on her mother’s shoulder and mutters J _ersey Devil_ into her ear.

Scully turns and glares at Mulder, who has the decency to look guilty despite his overwhelming disappointment at another night of not getting laid.

“Did you hear that, Mulder?” She asks tersely. “Emily’s having nightmares about the story you told her last week. Still.”

Now that all evidence of their almost-sex is gone, Mulder stands and takes Emily out of Scully’s arms. Scully smoothes her daughter’s hair. “Mulder is gonna tuck you in again and explain to you exactly why there is _no such thing_ as the Jersey Devil, right Mulder?” She gives him a pointed look behind Emily’s back and he nods.

“That’s right, it’s just a silly story. I’ll tell you a new- not scary- one to help you go back to sleep. Okay?”

Emily nods and yawns. “‘kay, Mulder,” She says sleepily, eyes already fluttering closed as her head rests against his shoulder. He carries her back to her bedroom, mouthing _I’ll be right back_ to Scully on the way. She replies _you better be_ and climbs back into bed, satisfying herself with sleeping on his side until he returns and slides in next to her so they can pick up where they left off.


	28. "and neither should you"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fictober Day 31, prompt #22 “and neither should you” - au in which Emily lives and is adopted by Scully, takes place during her first year living in DC, established Mulder/Scully relationship

**Annapolis, MD, 6:00 PM, October 31st, 1998**

The sounds of _It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown_ and Emily’s giggles fill Maggie Scully’s house tonight. She smiles to herself while she and her daughter clean up the remains of dinner in the kitchen, drawn back in time to memories of taking her own children trick-or-treating decades ago. Scully smiles and pours herself a glass of apple cider.

“What are you thinking about, Mom?”

Maggie smiles wistfully. “Holidays are always more exciting when there are children around, aren’t they?”

Scully nods and grins when she hears Emily’s peals of laughter from the living room at the _I got a rock_ scene. “It’s like you’re experiencing it through their eyes, it’s all shiny and new again,”

“Just wait until Christmas,”

“Oh geez, one holiday at a time, please,”

The two women join Emily in the living room to watch the rest of the holiday special while they wait for their guest to arrive. Emily glances at the clock restlessly. As the minutes pass, Scully decides that Mulder can always catch up to them if he needs to and starts helping Emily into her costume. One can only keep a child from a night of candy for so long.

There’s a knock at the door and Emily rushes to answer it with her costume pulled half-way on over her orange sweater, much to Scully’s dismay. Maggie meets her there with the candy bowl for possible early trick-or-treaters and opens the door to find Mulder on the doorstep, costumed and grinning like a child.

“Trick or treat!” He exclaims and returns a hug from Maggie. Emily bounces on her toes excitedly and he scoops her and her partially-assembled costume up in his arms. “Happy Halloween!” Mulder says and walks into the living room.

Scully sits on the couch, lacing up her boots. She smiles and looks up when the other two members of their group costume enter. When they all stand together, their individual costumes make more sense. The theme of their costumes had been Emily’s idea. She had fallen in love with “Jurassic Park” over the summer and hadn’t been able to stop talking about the velociraptors and the brachiosauruses.

Scully wears high-waisted khaki shorts and an open salmon button-down, which is tied at the bottom and reveals a blue t-shirt underneath. Her boots are sturdy and her hair is pulled into a loose ponytail. Mulder’s costume echoes hers: khaki pants, a blue button-down, and a red bandana tied around his neck. A broad-brimmed wicker hat sits atop his head.

Scully’s costume had been fairly easy to assemble since she’d already owned most of the pieces it needed, but Emily’s velociraptor costume is the product of hours of meticulous crafting. Scully had spent quite a while cutting cardboard and applying fabric to it with a hot glue gun until satisfied with the level of realism. Emily had supervised, too young to use the glue gun but just the right age to insist that they watched “Jurassic Park” on repeat while making the costume. She’d been thrilled with the finished product, putting on the mask and growling at Mulder and Scully over dinner a few weeks ago. 

Mulder sets Emily down and helps her into the rest of her costume.

“Look at the three of you, it looks like you could be in the movie,” Maggie says, walking into the room with a camera in hand. Scully smiles sheepishly and Emily beams.

“Thanks, Mom,”

Emily peeks out the front window in anticipation. “Can we go trick-or-treating now that Mulder is here?” She asks her mother anxiously. Scully checks her watch and looks at Mulder.

“I’m ready to go if you are,”

Mulder nods. “That’s why I’m here! We’ve got to get all the good candy before everyone else, right Em?”. 

Emily nods and runs into the kitchen, grabbing her empty pillowcase. “Right!”

“Let me just get a picture of the three of you in front of the house before you go,” Maggie interjects, opening the front door for all three of them as they walk out in front of the house. She’d decorated the porch with a small scarecrow and a pumpkin that Emily had carved (with Scully’s help) earlier in the month. Mulder, Scully, and Emily stand next to the decorations now as Maggie walks out into the driveway to snap their photograph.

“Say cheese!” She encourages. Emily pulls her mask over her face and growls in response. When Maggie is satisfied with her pictures, the three of them make their way down the driveway and emerge into the bustle of the street, crowded with other families. Emily looks around, blue eyes wide and gleeful. She shivers a bit against the light wind, still getting used to the changing of the seasons on the east coast as compared to San Diego.

“Well, where to first?” Scully asks, taking Emily’s hand. The small girl points to the house across the street and they all cross carefully before walking up to the front door. Emily looks at Scully expectantly.

“Go ahead, ring the doorbell so they know we’re here,” She says patiently, accustomed to her daughter’s occasional shyness. Emily reaches up and presses the button next to the door with two fingers and is answered with a friend of Scully’s mom, who offers her a bowl of treats to choose from. After thanking her profusely, the trio makes their way down the street.

As the sun sets and more children and their parents begin to fill the street, Emily grows bolder and starts going up to the doors of friendly-looking houses by herself. Her pillowcase of candy grows too heavy for her to carry, but Mulder and Scully help by sneaking the odd Snickers bar and mini-Twizzlers for a mid-evening snack. Soon, Emily is skipping up to doors by herself, grinning at the people giving her candy and laughing with the other children at the door. Scully watches her and smiles, so grateful to see her full of life. 1998 has been kind to Emily, and despite her occasional health scare, she looks so much healthier and happier than the small girl that had lain scared and dying in a San Diego hospital less than a year ago.

As Emily continues to stretch the muscle of her newfound independence, Mulder and Scully wait on the sidewalk and trade sneaky, sugary kisses.

“You should _not_ be able to make that costume look so sexy,” Scully whispers to him while they both watch Emily bounce up to a door and ring the bell. She looks back at her guardians excitedly and they wave.

“And neither should you,” He whispers back. “But I learned long ago that you possess some sort of superhuman ability to make anything you wear, no matter how weird, look incredibly hot,”

“Weird?” She raises a playful eyebrow, carefully watching the interaction between Emily and the person who answers the door and holds out a bowl of candy.

“I remember a very...interesting plaid suit that you wore a few years ago,” Mulder chuckles and she elbows his arm as Emily traipses down the path and back to them, pillowcase swinging next to her.

“I did it! Did you see me, Mom?” She asks excitedly. Scully nods and smiles, taking her hand as they walk to the next house. There’s a slight pep in her step and she grins at Mulder, who smiles back supportively. Being called _Mom_ is still new to her and the novelty has yet to wear off.

“I saw! Great job, Em. You’re being such a big girl tonight,” Emily beams at her and skips along to the next house, which is decorated like something out of a horror movie. Strobe lights flicker on the front porch, the theme from “Halloween” plays from hidden speakers and fog spills out over the gravestone-covered lawn from an unseen source. Further up on the porch, it looks as if the homeowner had set up mannequins dressed as horror film villains. Emily stops in her tracks, her arm tugging on Scully before they can get too close.

“Do you want to skip this house?” Scully offers, eyeing the decorations and frowning at the way her three-year-old daughter is sucking on her thumb. Ever mindful of all the germs that could threaten Emily's already flimsy immune system, Scully reaches down and gently pulls the digit out of her mouth.

“I dunno,” Emily says hesitantly. She bites at her bottom lip, a giveaway of her nerves that she’d inherited from her mother. Mulder squats so they are looking at each other eye-to-eye.

“Why don’t I come with you? The monsters wouldn’t dare mess with me,” He flexes his biceps in a comical display of strength and Emily giggles. Scully knows the feeling well, the trust in Mulder’s ability to keep monsters at bay.

“Ok,”

Scully watches as Mulder takes Emily by the hand and leads her up to the porch. Her little girl is so brave, lowering her mask over her face and growling at one of the mannequins that’s dressed as Jason Voorhees. She receives her candy and walks back to her mother with Mulder, who is beaming.

“Good job, kiddo,” Mulder says, holding a hand down to her eye level for a high five. Emily slaps his palm proudly and he stumbles back, exaggerating her strength and shaking out his hand.

“Wow, you must be even stronger than me,” He says and shoots Scully a quick wink. Emily laughs and Scully feels a warm fullness in her chest, happy to simply watch Mulder make Emily laugh. She trusts him more than anyone else in the world already, but after watching the way Emily has grown attached to him and the way he’s cared for her over the past year, she knows that her daughter could not have a better quasi-father in her life.

Mulder catches her wide smiles and returns it before they both take one of Emily’s hands and lead her to the next house.

Emily begins to tire out when they’re three-quarters of the way through the neighborhood. Sensing her fatigue and not willing to risk the impending crankiness that may follow, Mulder picks her up and hands her bag of candy to Scully. When they visit the next house, they are greeted by a kindly old married couple that Scully vaguely remembers plant-sitting for when she was in college. They smile and dote on Emily, dropping candy into the pillowcase. Emily thanks them with a shy smile and Mulder carries her down the driveway. Scully stalls for just a moment, smiling warmly at the couple. The wife takes her hand and squeezes it.

“You have a beautiful family,” She smiles at Scully, who blushes and stumbles out a _thank you_ before joining Mulder and Emily at the next house. She finds that she doesn’t mind people mistaking Mulder as a member of their family in the slightest. At this point, he may as well be.

By the time they make it back to Maggie’s, the moon hangs in the sky, cloaking the street in its pale light. Emily yawns but insists on sorting through her candy before turning in for the night. As she dumps the contents of her pillowcase on the living room rug, Mulder and Scully settle into the welcoming softness of the couch, feet aching and the tips of their ears defrosting. Emily starts sorting her candy into piles by color, and then by brand, small hands scattering wrappers across the floor. Mulder watches her, mentally comparing Emily’s organizational finesse to that of her mother.

“Did you get a lot of trick-or-treaters tonight, Mom?” Scully asks Maggie, who is already wearing her pajamas and sipping at a mug of bedtime tea.

The older woman nods. “I ran out of candy about an hour ago, otherwise I’d offer you some,”

Scully glances at the pile of candy next to her daughter, which is slowly beginning to rival her in size. “That’s okay, I think we can manage to rustle some up,” She winks at Mulder who nods back in understanding.

Later, once Emily has been coaxed away from her candy and tucked into bed, Mulder and Scully sit on the couch, making a dent in Emily’s unbelievable haul of candy. As they eat and aim wrappers at a trash can that sits a few feet away from the couch, “Addams Family Values” plays on the television.

“That’s an idea for next year, what do you say, Scully? If Emily grows her hair out, she can be Wednesday, and you and I can be Morticia and Gomez,”

Scully crunches on a Twix bar and considers this idea. “Maybe. You’d make a hell of a Gomez,”

“ _Cara Mia_ ,” Mulder purrs dramatically, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it. Scully’s cheeks turn pink and she giggles.

As the night continues, Mulder and Scully find themselves slumping into a more horizontal position on the couch until they are laying down, Scully’s back to Mulder’s chest. He pulls a blanket that hangs over the back of the couch over them as they slip into a warm and untroubled sleep.

“Happy Halloween,” Scully says fondly while hugging Mulder’s arm close to her chest. He smiles and kisses the top of her head before he drifts off.

“Happy Halloween, Scully,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with me all month and leaving such lovely feedback!! I really appreciate it! Please know that I read every comment and that they mean the absolute world to me. Happy Halloween <3


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